Alison Pill Quotations

I grew up a happy kid in Toronto. I've never suffered. I've never even had a real job! But I understand sadness and striving, and those two things tie into all the roles that I've played.

I'm an actor, but I'm also a feminist, and a lot of times in movies there are things that I cannot imagine happening that are on the screen and totally accepted. And I just go, 'Whaaat?'

One of my favorite things in watching an actor is feeling, The story is safe in your hands. I can lean back and trust you with this.

And I loved seeing that because they're great interesting cities in of themselves so I'm looking forward to actually being able to use it as itself instead of being a bad New York.

It's wonderful. It's amazing. I mean we have such a great music scene and art scene and there's just a great group of young people, you know, temping their way through their 20's doing other amazing things. And I've been in...I spent like 10 years working here without ever having been shooting in Toronto. And it's so frustrating because it's a great city. And I remember seeing Montreal actually used as Montreal in that Ed Norton-Robert DeNiro...

I didn't know the comic at all, which is really funny because I grew up here and I had friends who worked at all of the places. Like The Beguiling, which is a store here, and Suspect Video and one of my friends actually worked at Suspect and The Beguiling. So it's kind of crazy that I'd never known the books before.

I don't have any trouble believing that you would avoid something seemingly perfect because you're in something you really want to prove to yourself you can do right.

The best thing about serial drama - especially about screwball comedy - is blocked love.

I find that a lot of my best character stuff and ideas come unwittingly from novels. In scripts, it's a lot about the outward signs of whatever's happening - you have the end result. Whereas in a novel you get a buildup of the whys and wherefores, and you're let into the backstory.

Secrets are great for acting. Secrets are the best thing in the world for acting, because they keep you looking like you have something in the back of your mind.

To keep an active mind, I find that reading novels is really good.

I learned to drum and I'm very excited today. Well, first of all I got to...I learned when I was in New York I sort of did some prepping with just learning basic stuff like beating my couch next to my drum teacher, who's this incredible guy named Charlie Green.

And then we came here for three weeks of band rehearsal with [music consultant/member of the band "Sloan"] Chris Murphy. And I grew up in Toronto during Sloan's heyday, so like I was like "Oh my god!" And so that was pretty cool.

I didn't like most of my boyfriends. I'm a perfect example of somebody who will make it work no matter what. Like, I once had a guy move in with me. He was my least favorite. Nobody who went out with us knew that we were together. I just would not give off the vibe.

Okay, I get kicked off the drums when I try and...the notes just keep coming at you and I'm like "Ahhhhh!" I can't do it. I have literally gotten booed off the stage way too many times. It's terrorizing. The rest of my band mates just are...they tell me to get off. I'm like, "I can play bass. Dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk."

And so getting to meet Aubrey Plaza and Mae Whitman and getting to know two awesome girls who are just kick-ass. It's been nice that way where we probably wouldn't have worked together on any other crazy project. And just like you know Chris Evans teaching us all the high-five because he's dealing with like non-jocks (laughter) and we're like yeah!

One of the great things about this cast is that we've been able to take actors of relatively the same age group that would never usually meet. You know, like bridging the comedy/drama world that for some reason casting directors never really want to bridge or you get into one community and that's kind of it.

Well, it's sort of funny to try and get that balance between just accepting the reality of my friend [co-star Satya Bhabha] flying in from the ceiling of the theatre and like starting to do a dance with demon hipster chicks. It's like, so how do we react when he throws fireballs? Are we surprised? Does this happen a lot?

But it's been funny to try and carry the through line, but I think the main thing is the relationship that the band has because we have spent now all this time together that I think that's sort of what we returning to. And whenever we get to play together, it still sort of returns to that little shitty rehearsal space. So that's good.

I would say my favorite was just the beginning of the movie like doing all the rehearsal stuff. It's been amazing to see the rest of it happen but it happens so piecemeal. And Edgar sort of has the whole movie edited in his head already, so we're just sort of matching to what he has.

I mean I feel like we've shot all these different movies. Like the first 2 weeks of shooting was all Steve Stills apartment and band rehearsal, you know? And so it was like this tiny little group of people and small set comparatively and it just looked like a Toronto apartment. And then we sort of kept ramping up further and further until now we're here in this giant like craziest set I've ever seen with LCD crazy lights that go....you know?

I think it's just different to get married for a woman than it is for a man. The amount of work to overcome certain gender roles in the partnership - just the expectation of housework, kid-work, whatever it is.

There's a lot more historical baggage to deal with as a wife than as a partner.

The biggest thing I've noticed with some of my favorite directors is their gift of sticking a bunch of strangers in a room together and making them comfortable and making them into a cohesive group. There's magic involved, because you don't know why anybody would pick this group of people.

I guess the biggest world difference you can make is in people's relations to their own emotions, 'cause emotions rule so much of our daily life, and I think that's where we work.

I find it very hard to believe that people would prefer an awkward picture with me than a normal conversation.

I think a lot of people try to plan things in their career. They feel like, If I don't get this done by the time I'm thirty, everything's over. But I've worked with a lot of people whose careers shot to the top later in life.

The biggest thing about growing up in Canada is you know that Los Angeles and New York are not the only places in the world. They're not the only places where brilliant acting happens.

When you're in film and you're in close, charisma in the eyes and confidence can take over. But when someone's sitting twenty rows back, you need the whole body. You need to be encompassed by an actor.

Some people get fake boobs, but whatever. You can make your own decisions.

The script is a bible and it's this unchangeable document that somebody spent years and years on.

When women are in positions of power it's a hard place to be, especially when that position involves bossing men around.

You only live once. Trying to do the right thing for other people often doesnt work out, and you have to follow your own path in order to make things work out best for everyone.

You only live once. Trying to do the right thing for other people often doesn't work out, and you have to follow your own path in order to make things work out best for everyone.

I guess the first big name I worked with was Sissy Spacek, and that was really interesting just because she's so incredible and I learned so much from just watching her. But she's also so unassuming that I loved working with her. It wasn't like working with a star, it was Sissy. Not a big deal.