- [on her early roles in commercials] I was the all-American face. You name it, honey - American Dairy Milk, Metropolitan Life insurance, McDonald's, Burger King. The Face That Didn't Matter - that's what I called my face.
- I have trouble with star billing. I remember thinking on Cannery Row (1982): How can I put my name ahead of Steinbeck's?
- [on Bernardo Bertolucci] For me, Bernardo is The Function. The only way I can explain it is in the analogy with mathematics and the word 'function' - addition, subtraction, multiplication, anything that numbers go through and change because of it. And when the function is a function of love, the drapes on the windows, the doors that are hung, the characters, the clothes, everything goes through this function and comes out touched and inspired by it. There are a lot of numbers but what really matters is the function.
- [on being labeled "difficult"] It was like armor. It kept the fainthearted at a distance. But perhaps I was too tough.
- I used to love going on a junket and promoting a film when it was not a 24-hour news cycle, and when there weren't so many media outlets. You could actually talk about the film. And I don't mean to harp on this because, really, it's fine. It's just that it eats itself. It becomes about itself, and its symbiotic and weird and I don't understand the celebrity of it.
- [on Legal Eagles (1986)] I don't regret doing it, but I don't think it stands on its own against good films. It was a nightmare to make. Shooting was supposed to be ten weeks, and it went on for four months. And it was fat - almost $40 million - and, politically, I'm opposed to that kind of money unless it's an epic. I took my salary and left.
- I do admit to being challenging, but it's always for the work, it's never personal. I will walk out on a scene if it's all lit and ready to go but it's not happening. Just because we're on schedule is no reason to shoot bad acting. Someone once said to me, "You're inconsiderate." And I said, "Inconsiderate? Bad acting is the ultimate inconsideration." It's a collective slap to a million faces at the same time.
- [on Urban Cowboy (1980)]: I loved it. It was the opening of everything for me because of the way James Bridges worked: the freedom, the collaboration, the end product. It was a slice of life, that movie. I'm real proud of it.
- [on her film debut in Slumber Party '57 (1976)] A cigar-smoking agent had signed me while I was waitressing, but that only resulted in a blue movie.
- [on An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)] I run in to Richard Gere quite a lot and he half jokes, 'Are you still saying terrible things about me?'
- [In 2010, 17 years after her Oscar-nominated performance in Shadowlands (1993) came out, she told the "New York Times"] It was the most literate script I've ever read. I was sad every day that I wouldn't ever say those lines again.
- [She earned Best Actress Oscar nominations for playing young women who died of cancer in Terms of Endearment (1983) and in Shadowlands (1993)] I remember walking through the living room years ago when the series Roseanne (1988) was on. John Goodman said, "Come on, do you want to go down to the multiplex and watch Debra Winger cough up another lung?" It was the funniest line to me. Then I realized, that's it for me. I can never do another film about death. I've cashed that card.
- [In 2008, responding to Lynda Carter's claim that Winger made disparaging comments about the 1970s "Wonder Woman" show where they played sisters] I don't know what she's referring to except I used to make jokes about her costumes. But she did have these golden tits that stuck out and when she turned, they didn't. I was 18 years old, staring at these gold bazooms that didn't move. That's all I ever said. So there you go. Lighten up.
- [Reflecting on her modern family after the 2016 presidential election] This past Thanksgiving, I had my husband [Arliss Howard] and my stepson's mother and my oldest son's father [Timothy Hutton], all of us all together at the house. That was a first. And it was great. There wasn't that strain, finally. I think after the election, a lot of people felt, whatever side you were on, "Just, wow, who can I feel close to? Who can I not feel the anxiety out in the world that everyone is feeling right now?"
- Anybody who says they understand how to make love stay would have to be called a liar or misguided. The intention is to stay awake, stay alive, keep loving, keep lit up, keep being able to light up the other one. Those are the real tricks. That and some pixie dust.
- [on avoiding decorative roles] I think that I have an ego, but, look, if you're altering your looks, working out more than any normal human can work out in order to achieve a certain, unreasonably perfect standard, you're not going to be able to tell a whole bunch of stories. You're going to end up limiting yourself. I've always been a poster child for 'Let's take the makeup down a notch'.
- Acting is something that always came very naturally to me. I've honed certain skills, and I'm always learning new things from the different directors that I work with.
- [In 2017, on her 40-year love with acting] That's one thing that hasn't changed over the years. It's really magical for me, that space between 'action' and 'cut.' What I get out of it is sacred, and I don't use that word lightly. The way I feel when I'm working is the way people feel when they go to church.
- [on the producers of An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)] They were pigs. They were terrible. And I was terrible back.
- [on why she is not camera shy] My parents think this might have had something to do with it: there's hardly any pictures or movies of me because by the time they got to me I'm the third child they were so sick of, y'know . . . I had to, like, search through closets to find one film of me. I just got scared, I really thought I didn't exist. You don't have a baby picture and therefore you aren't.
- [on her extraordinary ability to expose deep emotions on camera] I trust what happens to my face. I don't know and I don't think about it. I have a thing with the camera. When it runs, something happens. I found out about it in my first screen test. I used to beg for screen tests, man, I was the only actress in Hollywood that used to say please test me, don't make me read in a room, just send me out there, you know, in front of the camera. They did a thing when we were shooting one time, we started and it didn't feel right, it wasn't happening and I said, 'There's something wrong with the camera,' I thought maybe there was a hair in the track, something, and they said to me, 'We never turned it on.' " The lens is unconditional. It doesn't judge you.
- [on watching her first on-camera role] I did a documentary for the police department on why you shouldn't hitchhike. It was called ''Vickie the Hitchhiker. They called me one day and said they were going to show it, and would I like to see it. And I said, oh sure, you know. It was the first thing I ever did on film since home movies. My mother was working but my father could get free. So he came down. In the movie a guy picks me up and tries to rape me and he kills me. He hits me over the head with a rock and there's blood. I decided to die with my eyes open. That was a big choice. And when the lights came on, my father was gone. And I ran out the door and he was in the bathroom....So that was the first time I thought I'm a good actress. You know, if he believed it, maybe I'm good.
- [on An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)] I did not have a great time on that set. Studio mishegoss. I was being really jerked. And most of those guys are dead now. So I don't feel bad. People like Don Simpson - they were pigs. I'm sorry, may he rest in peace, but he'd go to dailies and bring me a water pill. They treated girls very badly. I was trying to stand up to it. And it was hard. I was really young. "Is she fuckable? Do I want to fuck her? Will I get to fuck her?" That's all it's about in that world. And I don't go to the movies for that. It wasn't about finding a guy I wanted to fuck. It was about dreaming about life.
- If you want to get a face-lift, get a face-lift. Don't sit there and talk about why you got it because of the pressure.
- [on retiring in 1995] I wanted out for years. I got sick of hearing myself say I wanted to quit. It's like opening an interview with "I hate interviews!" Well, get out! I stopped reading scripts and stopped caring. People said, "We miss you so much." But in the last six years, tell me a film that I should have been in. The few I can think of, the actress was so perfect.
- I wish my mood swings were due to drugs, because then all I'd have had to do is stop taking them.
- [on producing Big Bad Love (2001)] The endless phone calls! Sometimes I think I could slash my wrist. But it takes six minutes and 55 seconds for your blood to circulate out of your body, and my family won't leave me alone long enough.
- A lot of people say to me, 'Debra, you're the girl next girl.' And I wonder on what block they live.
- [on Terms of Endearment (1983)] I like what the film said about mother-daughter relationships,. In my own life I've done some reckless things, and yet my mother's door was always open to me. That's unconditional love. And we spend the rest of our lives searching for that in a relationship.
- [on Legal Eagles (1986)] I'm glad that some people are enjoying it. But I was horrified to see it edited with a chainsaw.
- [on An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)] I'm not sorry I did the film, because it brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. But the making of it was treacherous. I don't need much when I'm making a movie, but I do need respect, and I didn't get it.
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