Gina McKee Quotes

I'm sure that my wanting to be an actor had to do with a need for approval.

If I wasn't so insecure about myself I wouldn't work as hard as I do. I am constantly seeking approval.

It's a career that's enticing because you go on stage, for example, and people clap. You get that affirmation, but you can't go into acting for that because it's really your own self-belief that's going to get you through.

I want you to like me, but I don't care if you don't.

I need what I'm thinking to come out into the world, even if it's a two-word approval, like, "Yeah, I agree," I need that approval so that in the morning I can get up and use that when I go to work. It's a weird version of focusing.

This weird thing that musicians have... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid.

I just want everyone to like me. That's my main flaw.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

Am I really cool? You're telling me I'm cool? Well, that's good to hear.

I think I started out because I was desperate for approval and acceptance and praise. Some actors never break away from that. They're after that validation their whole life.

As much as the next person, I want to be approved of, but I'm not greedy for that stuff.

Everybody is looking for validation, no matter who you are, and I think that's a need of the human condition - to look for affection or recognition or validation.

We are deeply conditioned against unconditionality because we've been told in a thousand different ways that accomplishment always precedes acceptance, that achievement always precedes approval.

I had low self-esteem. I just really wanted attention and love from somebody.

I would say that my fatal flaw, as a human being, is that I need people to like me, and if they don't like me, I will obsess over it - and try to change my personality until they like me - even if they don't like me for reasons that have nothing to do with me, and even if they're strangers.

It's lovely to be told you're wonderful by someone when you're used to being told how awful you are.

I have always admired people who are comfortable not being liked because I am the opposite of that. To the point when I was little, it was crippling.

Half of my anxiety is about whether people are going to like me.

There's so much crap attached to acting: the fame aspect, the ego aspect, the 'Am I good, am I bad, am I being judged, who likes me, who doesn't like me...'

I felt inferior. I had this tremendous need to perform. I wanted to be acceptable to my peers. I thought if I could just be a big star, I'd feel like somebody, too.

You realise that there's nothing more endearing than people who are desperately trying to be liked or trying to be the hero, you know? Who also probably just need a hug or want to impress their dad?

I once read a quote that I think was Michelle Pfeiffer in an article, who said that she thought people went into acting because maybe if you could convince millions of people to like you, you will finally like yourself, approve of yourself. I don't know if that may have been a part of it.

It's a challenge for me to make people like me. Maybe it's just my desperate need for people to like me, that I choose the characters I have to play. You will like me, I don't care what I've done, you're going to like me.

Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt in my voice that demands love. Even the people I work with, the ones I am supposed to have a professional relationship with, all business, get pulled into my need. I can't help it. I want to be adored.

Needing approval is like saying 'your view of me is more important than my own opinion of myself'.