Jennifer Beals Thinking Quotations

I think for me, when I'm looking at a script I really try to consider what experience am I embarking upon, because for me it's really about the experience.

Even when I think about the fact that energy can become matter and matter can become energy, I have a very strong feeling that there's something afterward.

[About the end of the The L Word] Everything has its cycle. I think it's appropriate for us to be ending now. But the beauty of storytelling, and the beauty of film and television is that it continues on.

I think science and spirituality are one and the same, I don't think they're really different...quantum physics is validating all kinds of spiritual teachings.

I think the central metaphor of the movie is this notion of what the advertising industry does. In order to make someone want to buy something, they first have to make them feel bad about who they are in order to sell them that thing which will make them whole again, and happy again.

When you have to play a character that seems to be a relatively decent person and seems to be like yourself, I think the trick in that kind of character, so that you don't become a cliche, is to find where their weaknesses are.

I think that the two of them have been doing this for a really long time and it is more like sport. Yes, they would love to find a lasting relationship, but it's not likely to happen the way they are going about it.

It looks like a marathon. And I'm proud that I'm not a DNF (did not finish). I'm not a DNF yet. I just kept going. I think that's been the key is just to keep going and really try to get better and try to be as truthful as I can and hope that good things come my way.

[Demystifying lesbian sex for an interviewer] In a way, the sex isn't really that different... From what I can tell, no, not really. All the things that men and women do together, think of everything that men and women do together, women and women can do together. And that makes you realize that sex is just simply about connecting with another person, or about intimacy...

Just when you think you know something, it gets turned around and challenged in some way. But those changes are welcome because you end up learning more.

Whether it's that moment in acting when everything is suspended and you're not yourself, or breaking through the veil of a very long run or swim, or hearing my daughter laugh they are all pathways to what I think God must be.

In North America, people get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don't know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don't know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else.

Women are so often segregated to their sexuality, and how they appear. In fact, there's a lot of talk, even now, I think in most jobs this is true...people will say, when a woman rises to power, they ask, 'who did she sleep with?' You know, it couldn't possibly be about her acumen, it couldn't possibly be about her intelligence. It's got to be about her body, because that's how women get ahead.

[On how she goes about trying to live authentically] Well really listening to my point of view and if I am on a set, say, that doesn't really value a woman's point of view, regardless of how they feel, continuing to give my point of view and try to find a way to be heard and not diminishing myself because other people are diminishing me. Because that, I think, is the worst temptation that, you know, you judge yourself by how others are judging you, and to fall into that trap is to walk into the realm of self-annihilation.

When I was younger, I enjoyed being strong, and I loved it when my heart was very strong, but I think it was also about submitting to the cultural idea that if you're a 22-year-old woman, you have to look a certain way. I'm not into that anymore. But I do appreciate it when my clothes fit.