69 Quotes by Melissa Leo

To be a comic, you must reveal yourself in your most grotesque nudity. And it's only then, when the truth gets told, when the audience recognizes it somewhere in themselves, that they get that great medicine of laughter.

More often, I'm asked to play somebody's mother, somebody's partner, somebody's wife.

I rarely know too much about anything I'm getting involved in.

I do wish everyone would call me Leo. It's not that I don't like Melissa. But the more I hear it called out, the worse it sounds.

I know what it meant to me to play the Reverend Mother, a role I've, in some ways, prepared a lifetime to do. It's why I took the part.

I'm not a particularly ambitious actress. I love to go and do my work, head down in the dirt, and be the character.

Docudrama is not really my game, but it's interesting to play real people; it's interesting to play 'real.'

Hire me for the next picture. I don't have to just play down-and-out trailer trash and mean, old, wicked, old nuns. I could play a princess or a queen. That's all I wanted to do. Because campaigning does go on. It's a part of selling the film.

Why do we have to pretend we're not in the sales game? I didn't sign on to be a salesman. I signed on to be an actor.