Kate Beckinsale Quotations

I always felt that anorexia was the form of breakdown most readily available to adolescent girls.

Apparently, I'm very good at firing a gun without blinking, which is unusual. That's why so many action characters have to wear sunglasses during shoot-out scenes. That's my party trick.

I think I like playing the bad girl. I like complicated. I like flawed, messed up complicated. It's more interesting.

Someone once said that you can make the choice between getting old and getting creepy, and I think getting old is the way to go.

I think what's dangerous about being an actor who does action movies is you think, 'Well, I can totally handle myself now.' But if my opponent didn't know the other half of the routine, I don't know how well I'd do.

No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved.

If I ever have sex with someone I might be able to develop a sense of humor.

I would quite like to play a big concert as Freddie Mercury. I can't sing that great and I haven't yet found a use for the over large size of my teeth. I quite fancy a mustache like that and he was such a great showman.

I have to say, sushi freaks me out more than almost anything.

I think that dwelling on other people's perception of you is the road to complete madness, unfortunately. I try and resist that.

When I first started working, I was very aware of the fact that I'd been to university and studied Russian and French and not acting. So when I started working, I'd started working quite young, I felt like it was important to treat myself kind of like an apprentice and do as many different types of things as I could.

I have more pet peeves than anybody: people talking in the movie theater, people eating in the movie theater loudly, people being rude, people making noise when you're supposed to be asleep, like drilling noises outside. I could be here all day.

I don't have a big career plan. I just like to see how things come out, and I just try to keep going in different directions.

Job-wise, I did have a moment of panic that I should have been a doctor a few years ago, but I hate when people vomit.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to present at the Golden Globes, come home, whipped the dress off and read to my daughter wearing gazillion-dollar earrings. That’s how it goes in my house, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,

With every project you do, you bring out a part of yourself, and it seems to be quite a good way of expanding a person.

If someone had told me years ago that sharing a sense of humour was so vital to partnerships, I could have avoided a lot of sex!

There's such a pressure on women that we put on ourselves and everyone else puts on us to look unrealistic and everything, but you just can't compare yourself to people in magazines.

Given that I can't sing like Freddie Mercury, obviously I'm not going to pursue it as a career. What would be the point?

As a mother, you feel much more vulnerable. And when you're vulnerable, you're a much better actress.

Everybody likes the underdog, because everybody feels like the underdog. No matter how successful you are, you always think, No one's being nice enough to me!

I find a lot of things kind of funny and I often say what's on my mind, and then get nine texts from all my friends going, 'What's the matter with you?' But I haven't ever made a big attempt to have any particular image. And I don't really worry about it. If it's funny, I don't care.

I love my fan base because they never high-five me; they always get really shifty and hide. Adam Sandler's fan base are like, 'Hey!' and high-five him and want to hang out, but mine go behind pillars and get really freaked out.

What's considered ideal in Hollywood is completely different than anywhere else in the world. I don't think you can aspire to it, nor can I. Everybody is retouched, stretched, lengthened, slimmed and trimmed. I could look at a picture of myself from the past and think, 'Why don't I look like that now?' It's because I never have!

I feel like my brain is more geared towards a novel than it is to a movie.

Books have always helped me make sense of things. With any life experience, you can find someone who has documented it in a poetic way.

Were I not married to the director, I'm not sure I'd know anything about the 'Underworld' sequel.

I didn't feel very attractive as a child and actually I wasn't.

I feel like I flunked at adolescence really badly. I found it really difficult.

I'm glad I've never been so successful that I couldn't stop doing one thing. I've kind of been able to just kick it along and switch around.

If I get a script that's set in the jungle it goes to the bottom of the pile because I don't think the playgrounds are going to be very good there! I'm really aware of how lucky I am but I have the kind of job where I can bring my child to work.

At Oxford University, I studied languages so I could read the great novels as they were originally written. I took what in the United States would be a double major in Russian and French, but I have to admit that the pressure of getting through so many books spoiled reading for me.

I don't really watch all that much television, I have to say, because I'm so intimidated by how many channels there are. I really cannot find my way back to anything. But I'm compulsively addicted to '24.' I love that show.

I try and take lots of vitamins and I don't drink. I do smoke, though, I'd be insufferable if I didn't smoke, you'd have to push me off a balcony I'd be so boring.

The secret to everything for me is doing yoga every day. It does do nice things for your body, but it also kind of calms you down and chills you out. Other than that, I don't really drink alcohol and I always take my makeup off at night!

When I was pregnant, I had the romantic idea that after the baby was born I would not only take up reading in earnest again, but also write a novel while my daughter slept in her Moses basket. Of course, I barely had time to keep up with my magazines until she started sleeping properly.

Apparently, I get facials and manicures all the time. I read this and think, 'Oh, I wish I did that!' I don't think I've had a facial since I was 19.

I didn't go looking to marry an American, it just kinda happened like that.

I don't tend to do much with my lips. My lips are naturally very pink, so if I add any more colour, it looks like I've been smacked in the mouth!

I dropped out of Oxford, and now I only speak Russian with the woman who gives me a bikini-wax. See what Hollywood does to you?

I feel like I've done a bunch of period stuff and then a bunch of romantic comedies.

I was a very difficult child, and the time I spent reading was about the only peace I gave my mother.

I'm attracted to playing things that I find difficult, just because it's a journey that is much more interesting.

No one really knows who I am or where I came from in America, and there's something quite nice about that.

It's a very difficult thing losing a parent, but I think there's an added complication for me, because he was so well-loved and he had this very open charm that made people feel they had a personal relationship with him.

I would say probably my least favorite costume ever was in 'Van Helsing.' That was a huge pain because it had thigh-high boots with 30 buckles on them that had to be done up individually.

I grew up as an only child and my mother was also an only child, so we were both very passionate about reading. I think I passed that on to my daughter, who went plowing through 'Harry Potter' and every other book possible!

Obviously I've had great experiences with people I've worked with on films - I've married half of them! I should come with a warning sign that says, 'Don't worry, I'm not going to try to marry you. I'm done.'

People are controlled to varying degrees but it will still make people think - for example Chris actually says to Marian: 'I've seen you walk down the street, you are allowed out' - so to all intents and purposes she's free. But Bernie has brain-washed her to believe her only purpose in life is to serve him.

This is what's sick about living in L.A. My eight-year-old daughter will point to a woman and say, 'Look! That woman's had too much Botox.' She spots them because they all look a bit like Lord Voldemort from 'Harry Potter.'

I was a big disco-dancing child really. My friend and I were constantly making up routines and flinging ourselves around and doing the splits.

If I have children I am going to make sure people don't ask them, ""Are you going to be an actor?"" My mother said I could be anything I wanted except a policeman.

As an actor, your motives and your own crazy psyche is really all you're responsible for in the movie.

I still feel like the person who shouldn't be doing this and everyone is acting around me as if I'm a badass all the time. And this still feels like a stretch. I realize this is something that is incredible. I get to do this and I get wonderful teachers to help me and it's amazing.

But it still feels like it's a reach for me. I am more comfortable doing a drama. I feel like I know what I'm doing a bit better there. But it's good to be scared.

It is very different. I mean, it was immediately different because it's a human being and it's not a vampire and it's not fighting monsters. This isn't the kind of movie that's got the comic book style of fighting to it. It was a bit more gritty.

I think that at some point everybody turns into their mother or their father, it's just not normally from morning to afternoon.

I must say, I am thrilled with my fan base. For some reason some of them are quite young, so they are quite frightened.

The hover cars were terrifying. I manage to make it even more terrifying by having food poisoning on that day as well. Hover cars you can't get out of very easily or quickly, so that held a whole extra element of risk for me."

It's frightening enough with a male actor and not a stunt person. If you accidently punch him with the wrong hand, then you've cost them a week's work and they've got a black eye or a lot of money goes on CG to get rid of it. That was nerve wracking, but it was very civilized. Women tend to immediately take responsibility if somebody messes up with both of us saying it's our fault. Men are quite happy for it to be your fault it seems like.

Where possible, if there's something that is highly likely to kill you, the studios won't insure us to do [the stunts]. But where we are insurable, Len likes to make us do that. He likes to see actors' faces and have everybody know that that is them doing it. Yeah, I definitely got some bruises on this one.

If I had a child actor, I would wish for it to be in an Adam Sandler movie, because he just comes in and makes them so comfortable and is so brilliant with them and they all go home and they that they've got this special relationship.

I quite fancy having a hover car, but I don't fancy everyone having one. Because I feel like I spend quite a lot of time stuck in traffic on the 405 but if everybody had one then they'd be scared and we'd crash, but if it was just me, then I think I would zoom home quite fast. I also quite fancy a phone attached to my hand but then I don't know if I fancy it being stuck to my body.

I remember when I did 'Click' and I'd see Adam Sandler's fan base. He's the guy that people feel that he's their best friend, so he's walking down the street and people sort of high five him and want to tell him a joke or invite him to come home and have a sandwich with them.

I think actors always like to think they don't bring the character home, and then their family all laugh and tell you otherwise.

Yes, because it's Len's obsession with practical. I've never really had that experience that I hear people having of being on an empty soundstage painted green talking to a tennis ball on a stick.

It`s the only time my education has come in remotely handy. -on using her Russian literature studies for copying her "Van Helsing" script into Russian to acquire a Slavic accent.

I feel like I'm really lucky.

It's wonderful to have the most important thing in the world there first thing in the morning. And especially in this business, where the opportunity to think everything is about you is there every day, now I really know that it isn't all about me.

I find American behaviour...odd

I would quite like to play a big concert as Freddie Mercury. I cant sing that great and I havent yet found a use for the over large size of my teeth. I quite fancy a mustache like that and he was such a great showman.

I'm surprised there aren't more celebrities in burkhas.

Always argue over text so other people aren't embarrassed!

On her daughter's pet rabbit: I don't think he liked being in a cage and wouldn't stop masturbating and humping his bowl.

I have a husband who literally worships me. And cleans the house. And blow-dries my daughter's hair.

I think that's why I gravitated toward slightly broader... ummm, more conceptual kinds of movies, Underworld and Van Helsing. That was as much as I could actually give. But you're actually more of an animated figure. It does go against the grain, as an actor.

I sort of ended up in Los Angeles by accident. And it was sort of terrible to be jostled into this position of a fame-hungry starlet. Which is so honestly not me! In fact, I could use a bit more of that because I am such a hermit! So I allowed myself to get really bothered.

Sleep is like the holy grail. My trainer says if you're tired, your workout will suffer. Sleep is magic stuff.

Feeling attractive didn't come until I was 29... What is it about a woman being in her late 30s that brings out the "Oh, my gosh, are you worried?" questions? Worried? What about? Thirty-eight, 39, 40, 50! Great! Still alive!

My daughter comes with me everywhere. I don't leave her behind. But it is hard. I mean, I think any working mother will tell you that what kind of falls by the wayside, you know, are the hours of sleep that you wish you had, and all that. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed, but I do sometimes feel like that exorcist lady!

People should realize women aren't just whores or virgins, I want to see women who are real human beings.

I think you approach a part the same way and just find out in what's making them tick and who they are. In a movie like this you may have a little less time and few dialogue scenes and exposition scenes for your character to really get that across, and so I wanted to be able to convey that she's not somebody who's just punching a clock but she has this weird emotional investment in her job to where she does get quite myopic and that's what makes her relentless.

I am a Death Dealer, sworn to destroy those known as the Lycans. Our war has waged for centuries, unseen by human eyes.

People keep asking me about it but I don't want to be famous for being a former anorexic.

This is what's sick about living in L.A. My eight-year-old daughter will point to a woman and say, 'Look! That woman's had too much Botox.' She spots them because they all look a bit like Lord Voldemort from 'Harry Potter.'

I'm very blessed to have a husband who appreciates me. Women feel sexy from feeling attractive and desired. Men feel sexy from having sex. If you can strike a balance where the man is having sex a lot and the woman is feeling desired enough to have sex, then you've figured out the secret to a marriage that's alive.

I am used to wearing corsets. Even when I was first starting out it was either Shakespeare or Chekov. Everything that I was doing involved corsets. I guess I am just not destined to breathe that deeply.

Theres such a pressure on women that we put on ourselves and everyone else puts on us to look unrealistic and everything, but you just cant compare yourself to people in magazines.

I have found being a mother has made me emotionally raw in many situations. You heart is beating outside your body when you have a baby.

When [Len Wiseman and I] first met, I was a huge fan of the 'Alien' movies. I was a huge 'Die Hard' fan until it ate my husband for two years. We sit and watch movies all the time. One of my favorite movies is 'Dog's Day Afternoon.' Len loves that movie.

My best feature is unfortunately a private matter, although I'm told it is spectacular. But you can't really walk it down the red carpet. What can I say?

I'm a fan of action movies.