Winona Ryder Quotes

One of the first auditions I had in New York was for a commercial where I had to go in and audition to be a snake charmer... It was either some bank commercial or something where they wanted a guy charming a snake... I remember they wanted to know if I actually knew how to snake charm.

Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.

Eventually I got the call for 'Iron Man,' and I read sides that had nothing to do with what I did in the movie, and I performed it once while no one was in the room - it was videotaped, and I'm sure Shane Black was watching it from his helicopter or something. And then I got a call the next day that I was going down to shoot it.

There were two auditions for 'The Social Network,' one with Aaron Sorkin and one with David Fincher. I was a nervous wreck. I was like, 'Okay, how do I hold the paper without my hands making it shake?'

My longing to improve my looks via The Body Shop is being replaced by my longing to improve my looks via Photoshop.

I auditioned for 'Avatar' in Australia. It was a 'blind' audition. I didn't know what the movie was about and whom it was for.

In America, there's a programme called 'The Swan.' They take 12 ugly people and call them 'ugly ducklings.' They spend six months and have everything done - plastic surgery, teeth, everything. And then they have this moment where their family is brought in, and they are revealed. It's scary.

I auditioned for quite a lot of films. I do not wish to name the films I auditioned for. There were times when I knew I would not be fit for this film, or I would not get this film. Still, I used to audition for it just to get experience... to practice.

I went in for an audition [for As Good As It Gets], but the audition was with James L. Brooks. I was the first girl in that morning, and there was a whole waiting room of girls waiting to read for it. So I did my audition, and he asked me to step outside. So I stepped outside, and when he asked me to come back in, he looked at me, and he said, "Well, I'm very excited to work with you on set." And I was, like, "What?" I thought it was a Hollywood blow-off.

It was great and I had fun that day even though I was so sort of pleased when it was over to get through it. I didn't realize at the time that usually they screen test a number of actresses for the part, but they only tested me. So I think they knew then they wanted me to do it, and I wish they told me because I wouldn't have been so nervous. That was quite funny.

This is many, many years ago. It was shortly after "Starman" I think. I don't know how close I was to getting the part. I met with [director] Penny Marshall and that's one that I knew would be a hit. It just felt hit-ish. But it's like you go to a store and you see a jacket and you go "I love that jacket" and you try it on and it's too big or too small for you and it's the only one they have. For some reason that part just didn't fit me.

I think it was in my second week that I auditioned for Battlestar. I was very "Oh gosh, I want to be in television, I want to be in something, but I don't know if I want to be in this."

In L.A., I'm twice the size - height and everything else - of most of the other actresses who are going for an audition.

Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly.

Sure I'm cut but not for the sake of vanity.

It took a very long time to really enjoy an audition, and to get in the room and do the best that I can. I've just been deeply grateful for my career, and that the love for the work and the characters is alive still. I try to let go of the armor as much as possible and not be afraid.

It is part and parcel of every man's life to develop beauty in himself. All perfect things have in them an element of beauty.

It's amazing what a haircut and forgetting to shave will do.

It is so great to go to a casting director and have them wanting to talk about the show that you are in. It's such a great icebreaker. It just makes the environment so much more relaxed.

Doing a film, or being sent scripts to look at a certain character, it's very odd for me. I tend to take it very personally.

In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in West Side Story when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid and I just like forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved West Side Story so much and I somehow managed to get the role. I had an afro and glasses, and the guy who cast me goes, "All right, the first thing to go is the afro and the next thing, I'm going to buy you contacts and we're going to get you..." So he kind of molded me into what it had to - that's still probably the hardest role I've every played in anything, the most taxing role.

What used to frustrate me going into an audition was that some inexperienced, lesser casting people would think that actors are acting only when they're speaking.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing everyone a disservice by perpetuating the idea that beautiful is better than plain, because having done everything just about that you can do, sparing no expense, and not effort, to become better looking, I know that only so much can be done.

It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.

Most women, when they ask me for beauty tips aren't really prepared for my answer, which is, there is no magic beauty wand that can transform you and make you beautiful. It takes practice and what you see on Rupaul's Drag Race is years and years of practice.