Elizabeth McGovern Quotes

#1. North Hollywood isn't actually Hollywood, it's in the San Fernando Valley ... it's not the most glamorous part of L.A.

Elizabeth McGovern

#2. I still feel I'm doing the same work I've always done.

Elizabeth McGovern

#3. I don't believe in villains - just people who channel their energy in the wrong way.

Elizabeth McGovern

#4. I like writing letters and receiving letters. It's a shame that we've lost the art of letter-writing and saving correspondence. I mourn that.

Elizabeth McGovern

#5. Whenever I work on anything, there's always the fantasy that what one is doing is the next 'Citizen Kane'-slash-'Sopranos.'

Elizabeth McGovern

#6. Most people grow up dreaming of going to Hollywood and some of them work and work and work and finally end up in Hollywood.

Elizabeth McGovern

#7. My job now is to work hard and learn all I can.

Elizabeth McGovern

#8. As far as I can see women who have facelifts don't look younger, just weirder. You see them on screen with these tight, little porcelain faces - then the hand goes up to the face and it looks like it belongs to an alien. I find it really freaky.

Elizabeth McGovern

#9. The way it works in Hollywood is that if you're hot it doesn't matter if you're right for the part or not, you're just offered it.

Elizabeth McGovern

#10. England as a culture has endured so much more than America has as a culture, so it's given them a different perspective.

Elizabeth McGovern

#11. In today's world, we all live with the burden of feeling that anything is possible if we're only clever enough, smart enough, work hard enough.

Elizabeth McGovern

#12. Honestly, I am always shocked when I see myself in the mirror because I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 18 getting off the plane to go to Juilliard in New York.

Elizabeth McGovern

#13. My father was an academic, an eccentric. He was a lecturer.

Elizabeth McGovern

#14. I wasn't ecstatic about being pregnant - I wasn't somebody who actively wanted kids. Certainly there were no fantasies about nappy-changing.

Elizabeth McGovern

#15. In London, I take the Tube everywhere.

Elizabeth McGovern

#16. I turned down the opportunity to be in some films that went on to be blockbusters.

Elizabeth McGovern

#17. There is nothing in my life where I view myself as a 1920s person.

Elizabeth McGovern

#18. I'm someone who's done the opposite of whatever the received wisdom is, to keep your career going into your 50s.

Elizabeth McGovern

#19. I had reconciled myself to being happily out to pasture, a bit.

Elizabeth McGovern

#20. Hollywood never suited me, I didn't ever feel comfortable with it, it took me a couple of years but I found where I was always meant to be ... Chiswick!

Elizabeth McGovern

#21. That feeling of being 19 or 20 and 'hot' in Hollywood was so intense.

Elizabeth McGovern

#22. It's very tough when two creative people are together.

Elizabeth McGovern

#23. I've found acting on stage much more challenging than on screen.

Elizabeth McGovern

#24. It's peaceful for people to know how their lives are going to be, pretty much.

Elizabeth McGovern

#25. I just find it fascinating, like everybody, to be in a different life. It's an escape.

Elizabeth McGovern

#26. Now we have to contend with overstimulation and too many opportunities all the time, and too many decisions all the time.

Elizabeth McGovern

#27. I miss sometimes the buzz of America. A sense that anything can change at the drop of a hat. In a way, it's an exhausting thing to live with.

Elizabeth McGovern

#28. I've got my private life - that's sacred - and I didn't have that before.

Elizabeth McGovern

#29. I've raised daughters who are English, and I'm American, so they're culturally different to me, which is an unusual situation.

Elizabeth McGovern

#30. We lack rituals in this modern world.

Elizabeth McGovern

#31. Well, when I moved to England I was making a lot of personal adjustments because I was getting married and starting a family, that sort of thing.

Elizabeth McGovern

#32. I can't just sit around thinking how lucky I am.

Elizabeth McGovern

#33. I love having the opportunity to explore a part for a great length of time, really get deeper and deeper into it, because you only have a chance to do that once or twice in a career.

Elizabeth McGovern

#34. Well, I have a band, Sadie and the Hotheads, and we have an album that is already out that is available on our website.

Elizabeth McGovern

#35. By definition, an actor's life is a recipe for regret. There are always roads you could have taken. But I've lived long enough to realise that each road has its own rewards.

Elizabeth McGovern

#36. So the English approach to show business and their work is more - and this is a big generalization, I hasten to say - but it's more, they work on it as a craft job.

Elizabeth McGovern

#37. I have a terrible sense of direction.

Elizabeth McGovern

#38. My family were all into classical music, and I found that very intimidating.

Elizabeth McGovern

#39. I've been in things that have impressed people and they've come up to congratulate you but in a kind of, you-must-think-you're-really-special way.

Elizabeth McGovern

#40. If I feel I can play a part I do everything in my power to try to play it.

Elizabeth McGovern

#41. To me, the lyrics of the song define the kind of style it is.

Elizabeth McGovern