- It is important to me to stay in Canada. I used to think it was because I thought it was important to build up an indigenous film industry - but now I realise I'm incapable of living anywhere else. I'm a real homebody.
- "I was pretty uninterested in acting until I was about 17. I wanted to go to university and never think about acting again. I'd been very politically involved for a couple of years and I wanted a break, so I did The Sweet Hereafter (1997) in 1997. But I ended up completely falling in love with acting".
- I always think it's a bit of a joke when I get described as an activist. Really, for two or three months of my year I organise stuff, but I'm not as involved as I used to be.
- I started acting when I was four. My first experience on a film set was in dead of winter. Now I realise that almost every film I've ever been in is like that. It was the beginning of a long career of incredibly cold, sparse, barren landscapes.
- The guy who taught me to use the shotgun was a complete gun nut. I asked, 'Is the safety on when it's to the right or off when it's to the right?' And he said, 'The way I like to remember it is right is safe, like the government, and left is unsafe, like the people we are shooting at.' And I'm thinking, 'I'm in a room with my worst nightmare who's teaching me how to shoot a shotgun. How did this happen to me?'
- I missed out on a traditional childhood but I had something else that got me to what I am doing today. I can't say I regret it but I certainly wouldn't let my child act at an early age.
- On her film Dawn of the Dead (2004) going up against Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) head-to-head at the box office: "They've got only one guy who comes back from the dead. We've got millions".
- It takes terrible things to live well.
- {On her marriage to David Wharnsby} "My relationship is the thing I'm proudest of in my life. I had a lot of opportunities to end up in some pretty bad situations and, despite all my faults, I had the sense to find someone like him and make the decision to be with him. You spend a lot of time wanting to be with the wrong person and I just feel incredibly lucky because I've succeeding at that one thing. I figured that out".
- [on filming The Sweet Hereafter (1997)] "I was so young then, 18. I'm really comfortable in sadness so I don't get depressed doing stuff like that. I actually find it invigorating. It was an amazing experience. Atom Egoyan is a filmmaker who I really respect and I felt like I had his trust".
- If you have the opportunity to do things which have some meaning I don't know why you would choose to do other things. I understand that many people don't have that opportunity but I do right now so I'm happy to hold out for the films which have something to contribute.
- "I think you have to keep your distance from mainstream Hollywood in order to be a normal human being. I mean, I work there, and I like being there, but I love having an anonymous life. I think there's definitely such a thing as being too famous.
- The reason why I stayed in Canada had everything to do with the kind of films we used to make before the commercial mandate came in effect at Telefilm. They were films that asserted an independent vision of the world. They weren't just cheap versions of American genre films...but movies that spoke to the human condition. Now, I'm beginning to wonder why I stayed and if it was a huge mistake.
- [on herself and other Canadian actors & filmmakers, such as director-actor-writer Don McKellar, who stayed in Canada rather than go Hollywood and make movies in the U.S.] "If Canadian films don't have a purpose, then what are we still doing here? We're beginning to freak out a little. Why make a commitment with so little reward? The Canadian films out there have been so weak, it's been kind of depressing".
- [on movie critics] "There are a few who are not nice and they say things that are harsh...but they always help me to become a better actor."
- It was the opposite kind of love than we usually celebrate in films, which is new love without knowledge and without hardship. It's the whole idea of love after life has had its way with you, and after you have kind of failed each other and things have gone off the rails. Yet love still somehow exists between them" - 2007 AP interview on Away from Her (2006).
- That's something I find is really missing in films that portray love between people in their 60s or 70s. It generally lacks chemistry, like somehow that's all died away, and that's just not my experience of people in their 60s and 70s, that that whole part of yourself disappears somehow. It's a really pessimistic and inaccurate attitude that a lot of films have had, so it was really important for me to have that vibrancy between them, because I've seen it in relationships that have lasted that long. And I haven't seen it very often in films" - 2007 AP interview on Away from Her (2006).
- [on being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Away from Her (2006)] I'm in total disbelief. I'm thrilled but kind of in shock too. It's been such a strange year and I'm bowled over by the life of the film. It's more than I could have ever hoped. This now adds a very surreal element to it.
- I think that what a lot of first-time filmmakers don't realize is that they are the least experienced person on that set. Everybody else has been doing their job for years, so the whole act of playing the filmmaker, playing the person in command, is a charade.
- I think it takes a lot of focus and determination to stay in a relationship with film and acting that's productive and stimulating. Acting can be the most shallow, vapid things you can do with your life, but it can also be one of the most profound experiences in the world. Even my experience acting as a child is something I'm very ambiguous about. I'm not sure it was the best way for me to spend my time. But at the same time, I probably wouldn't be where I am now without it. And I'm very happy with where I am now.
- [on Take This Waltz (2011)] Seth Rogen is the easiest person to get along with on the planet. He's also the only one I had in mind when I was writing. He has a depth and a goodness to him that shines through in every role.
- I don't think we are prepared culturally for the idea that, once the 'happily ever after' happens, there are a lot of complications and sometimes boredom and all kinds of other things. That's not to say everyone should just stay in a long-term relationship. Certainly that's not the case. But I do feel we are ill-equipped when that first flame of passion dwindles.
- I'm fascinated by desire. I think, obviously, there's a biological drive that cannot be denied. It's completely human to be drawn towards desire, but I think desire can sometimes fill a gap for us in a way that nothing else can. That's why it's so addictive.
- I think young girls are done a disservice when they are read fairy tales and given the fantasy of happily ever after. We're always told about the beginning and the end of a relationship, but what about the middle?
- [on the polarized response by audiences to adulterous women in films] Men do that in movies all the time. We all love "Don Draper" [Mad Men (2007)] and look what he did. But any kind of sexual restlessness in a woman makes people deeply uncomfortable.
- If there is one thing I have learned, it's to embrace the mess of life. None of us knows what our stories truly are. And if it's possible to have the calm and grace to accept that the truth is somewhere in the middle of that cacophony - then that's what I aspire to now.
- [on Rebecca Jenkins, who plays Polley's mother in Stories We Tell (2012)] Rebecca is an astonishing actress. She's done such an amazing job that a lot of people don't realize, until the very end of the film, that those scenes are re-creations. It's a strange thing when an actor is so good you want to hide the fact that she's in your movie.
- [on Stories We Tell (2012)] I was exploring the themes of infidelity and long-term relationships in both my previous features and all of my short films. And now that I've made a movie about where the interest came from, subconsciously, I wonder if I now have to make fundamentally different films. Having thrown the form up in the air to see where it landed - playing with structure in very different ways than I had before - it's going to be hard to make a straightforward film again.
- [on directing Gordon Pinsent in 'Away from Her'] He learned the crew list with the same intensity as he learned his lines. He makes everyone feel so appreciated. He is also one of the funniest people I have ever met.. I think he brings such depth and humanity to the characters he plays. In 'Away from Her' he is the centre of the film. He is in almost every single frame. If the film works at all it is because of him.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content