- [on playing Laura Palmer] I have had many people, victims of incest, approach me since the film [Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me] was released, so glad that it had been made because it helped them to release a lot. And so for me, it doesn't matter what the critics say - if one person walks away having released something, then it's worth seeing.
- (Empire, December 1992)
- [on playing Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)] I felt really great about the decision because I never felt complete with Laura. I never got to be Laura alive, just in flashbacks, so it allowed me to come full circle with the character. Laura always had a tremendous amount of life, because everybody talked about her, yet I didn't get to do those things and be her.
- (Wrapped in Plastic, April 1995)
- [on working with David Lynch on Twin Peaks (1990) and Wild at Heart (1990)] I've been wrapped in plastic on a beach, I've imitated a bird [Waldo], I've come back as my lookalike cousin, and for Wild at Heart (1990) I hung 60 feet above the ground by piano wire to play a good witch who floats down the sky. All I can think is 'What's next?'
- (TV Guide, November 10, 1990)
- [on playing Katrina in Vampires (1998)] I've always had a fascination with vampires. It's not that I'm exactly fascinated with the dark side. It's the human struggle with it. How we deal with those two aspects of who we are. We all have those elements. It's almost as if we each have a vampire inside us. Controlling that beast, that dark side, is what fascinates me.
- (Cinefantastique Magazine, November 1998)
- I've often said that in acting school they teach you how to develop a character and how to bring in a character. But nobody teaches you how to let go.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- If something scares me, then I have to do it.
- The more we deny that we have a dark side, the more power it has over us.
- [on death] I don't think death is a negative thing at all. I think it can be very positive. I read a wonderful quote the other day that said death is like taking off a tight shoe. And I think that's brilliant. We're sort of stuck in these bodies here trying to deal, and that kind of freedom of taking off a tight shoe is truly what I believe death will be.
- (Los Angeles Times, 1991)
- [on recycling] We all have two hands, we can pick up at least two pieces of litter a day. If everybody just picked up at least two pieces a litter a day that they see on the side of the street that alone would make such a difference in our world.
- (dugpa, 2010)
- [on being an actress] I wanted to get away from myself. And in the end it did nothing but bring me right back to myself. It's the divine cosmic joke.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- I'm attracted to roles where I get to really go in and explore a character. I'm interested in that journey and that's the thing that keeps me in this business.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- Apparently I'm the most naked that anyone's been on TNT. My poor mother. I'm ready to run away.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- You don't want to open up the Yellow Pages and look for a tantric sex teacher.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- I was there and I filmed it and I brought whatever I could to it, but it's almost like, I painted a painting and gave that painting to somebody else and the painting lived on, but I went ahead and died. It's that piece of art that lives on, and I was fortunate to be a part of that piece of art, but that it's not me.
- (Rue Morgue, 2014)
- I had a brilliant doctor tell me that the only part of an actor that knows that they're acting is their mind.
- (Rue Morgue, 2014)
- I'm fascinated with all kinds of religion, but I'm not committed to any specific one.
- I never really thought of Laura as sexual because she's a victim of abuse. Sex and love have completely different meanings for her.
- Every actress has a line she'll draw, where she'll say, This I will do and this I won't. For me, everything has to be important to the story and the director has to be able to tell me why.
- I was in Seattle and I wanted nothing more than to act, but I was so terrified of it that I couldn't even get myself to an audition. It was miserable.
- I would love to play a nun. I used to want to be one when I was a kid.
- But ultimately what's important to me is whether or not I grow as a human being during the process. What happens after that is in God's hands.
- It's awkward: Here you are with most of your clothes off in bed with this person who you've really just met. You're strangers to each other's bodies and you're coming together for the first time in front of all these people.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- You always hear actresses talk about how unromantic it is to act a love scene or a sex scene - which it is. You're doing it with all these lights on and cameras flying around and people on the set.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- It's still difficult for me to watch my work. And there's still a sense of "Will they like it, and what if they don't?" But ultimately what's important to me is whether or not I grow as a human being during the process. What happens after that is in God's hands.
- Animals weren't put on this earth to entertain us.
- (PETA's Animal Times, 1999)
- When I was a kid, I begged my parents to take me to the circus because I loved to see the elephants. I had no idea they were treated so poorly. These amazing creatures should be walking 20 miles a day, but instead they're locked up... they can't even turn around.
- (PETA's Animal Times, 1999)
- Erotic scenes are actually very funny because they are always very technical.
- (Cinefantastique Magazine, November 1998)
- [on her first acting role] The first day of rehearsal something happened. I thought, 'This is it. I've found it' I still get terrified if I have to talk in front of a group of people. By having a character to play, it makes it safer.
- (Daily News, 1992)
- [on Yoga] It is all about discipline and stillness of the mind. It helps your ability to concentrate, your organs, muscles, flexibility, helps you eliminate toxins. On a spiritual level it helps you connect with your higher self. It helps get rid of patterns you set up a long time ago.
- (Daily News, 1992)
- For 2,000 years, women's sexuality has been judged and put to shame-'harlot,' 'whore'. Before that, it was worshiped and respected.
- (New York Magazine, 1992)
- [on her work choices] I know that I certainly have thus far not chosen a real mainstream path.
- (New York Daily News, 1997)
- [on career choices] I've had some dry spells; sometimes I'm too picky for my own good.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- [on nude scenes] Getting asked to play Astrid in Backbeat (1994), for example, was for me a phenomenal honor and creatively such a joy and so fulfilling. I'm not going to pass on that job just because there were a couple of nude scenes.
- (San Francisco Chronicle, 1997)
- [on her frequency of appearing nude] I hate it. It's very uncomfortable to be in a room full of strangers, in bed naked, with a person you barely know.
- (Cinefantastique Magazine, November 1998)
- Society has a fascination with death. I mean, if Laura Palmer had lived, I don't think half as many people would know who she was. So I can understand that. There's something about death. It's like trying to understand our own mortality and immortality. That's why society is so into things like vampires, because they don't die. Well, why don't they die?
- (Los Angeles Times, 1991)
- [on meeting Patti Bailey to prepare for her role in Love, Lies and Murder (1991) ] I just care so much about the woman that I'm playing.
- (Los Angeles Times, 1991)
- [on living in a room at the Chateau Marmont during the filming of Love, Lies and Murder (1991) ] I'm glad I had it. I don't think I was very pleasant to be around while we were filming. It was extremely difficult to leave the part at the door. I don't know that I ever did. I don't know if it's behind me yet.
- (Los Angeles Times, 1991)
- [on expectations for Twin Peaks (1990) ] I wish I'd had a handbook at the time to know how to get through all that craziness, but I didn't. I was winging it.
- (Daily Actor, 2010)
- [on playing dead] it really was an opportunity sort of meditate on death and I don't mean that in a morbid way, I mean that in an absolute way.
- (Daily Actor, 2010)
- [on the enduring popularity of Twin Peaks (1990)] when people experience something, whether it's a song or a television show or a film or a book, any piece of art that they're experiencing it for what it is. But then, it also connects them to a certain part of their life and whatever was going on at that time in their life.
- (dugpa, 2010)
- [on playing dead] For me, playing a dead person really was a meditation on whatever wanted to reveal itself in that space for me, I felt like I had to slow my internal system down a lot in order to able to lay there that still for that many hours at a time.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- [on David Lynch] I don't ever remember a lot of explanations for anything. I sort of remember him saying things like "Sometimes life doesn't make sense, why should we expect art to?" I remember him saying things like that, which was very freeing artistically to me.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- [on Laura Palmer] I can't even sometimes tell the difference between the Pilot and the film, because to me, my job was to tell Laura's story and to tell Maddy's story. So, those all run together as one story. I don't differentiate Laura's story as the film and the television show. To me, it's all the story of Laura.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- [on Laura Palmer] That darkness was never not there for me, for my character and the double life that was going on, was, I mean that's dark.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- [on difficult scenes] I'm very aware of when I'm working on material like that, you know, I get to go home at the end of my day and wash of everything and take a shower and try and get some sleep, I usually can't sleep after those kinds of days.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- I tend to think a lot of my parents and how difficult it must have been for them to watch. God bless them for continuing to support me as an actor knowing that was my first job of all things, you know, that they had to watch their daughter go through that.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- Playing a character like Laura Palmer, your brain does strange things to you. I still have nightmares in which I'm riding with Bob on an old abandoned train.
- (Fire Walk With Me Press Kit, 1992)
- When I die and see Oscar Wilde, I want to ask him his opinion, what he intended Salome's dance to be. I'd love to know.
- (New York Magazine, 1992)
- [on her role on Twin Peaks (1990)] Emotionally, it never left me that that sort of stuff happens in real life as well. It's heartbreaking.
- (Twin Peaks Archive interview, 2013)
- So many amazing women have lived on this planet whose stories have never been told. I want to find a way to get those stories told.
- (Reading Eagle, 1995)
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