Michelle Trachtenberg Quotes

[On refusing to do nude movie scenes:] There are certain people who should know what you look like naked. I just don't think your high-school algebra teacher should be one of them.

I'm not going to take my shirt off in every movie.

Remain true to yourself while practicing this business of being an actor. And it is a business.

I am not the kind of person who makes his bread and butter on how hyped I am. I am an actor, and I do my job.

I got roles from good production houses, though I wasn't keen on them, as I was asked to - and I won't - wear a bikini in a film. I'm not conservative, as I'd wear it on holidays, but definitely not in front of the camera. I have to think of my family.

I wouldn't do a lot of the things most actresses do, and that includes my sister.

When I first was putting out music, I was like, 'I don't want to be overly sexy or do too much with the imaging or show too much skin, and I want to make sure my lyrics are balanced.'

My advice for other female directors: don't think of your gender as a handicap. Don't think about it at all. Just tell the best story you can, and don't stop until you do.

People are brought up to think, "It's nice to be modest. It's nice to hide your light under a bushel." Well, bullshit! I've never bought that. In my business, the only thing you've really got is your talent; it's the only thing you have to sell.

You tell yourself that you're not auditioning but of course you work like crazy, and you prepare like mad. And you think, "Well, I won't get that job. But maybe they'll have another job sometime, and they'll remember that I was good."

I will never do nudity. I don't care how dark and intellectual the role could be, you know...I don't care if I frickin' could get an Oscar for it, I'm not going to do it. Those accolades mean nothing to me. I don't think people deserve to see what's under my clothing. That's only for my next husband-ha-ha-ha.

As I said, i'm very quiet, i don't go around saying "I'm awesome!" but when I brought in my portfolio into DreamWorks and showed them what I could do, my art style is a lot wilder than I am.

I find it relatively easy to keep my clothes on because I don't really feel like taking them off. It's not an urge I have. For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is. That's putting myself out there, maybe even more than taking my shirt off.

I would advise to to a young girl to think about modeling for a really long time before she does it because it's not as easy as it looks - and to just be herself and not let people make her crazy.

After I left Yale, we were all doing these mad plays off - off Broadway. And I got back to that feeling I had from college, of everyone making up in front of one cracked mirror, which is what I loved - the scrappy theater idea. I think off-off Broadway healed me, made me an actor again, and I was in so many different crazy shows.

My temperament is not inclined toward more self-promotion than is absolutely necessary for my professional well-being.

I think I have the only parents in the world who would not have said something against become an actress.

I was working with D'Mile - he's amazing! And I don't know, it was like that guitar riff was so crazy to me, and so I think I was frustrated about something that happened earlier and I feel like I'm just a good guy, I don't cut people off, I don't really call people out when they do stuff that they should be called out on, and I'm just always the one being the bigger person. So, that day "Gangster" just came out. That's just how I feel in that day to day life.

I dress like an old woman in my real life. If you're having conversations with people, you don't want them to remember you as the girl with the tits, you want them to pay attention to what you're saying.

There's a voice inside of me that I know people will relate to; I just haven't really had the opportunity to let it flourish. To sit there and explain to a guy what it's like to be a kick-ass woman is hard. I think there're only a handful of directors out there that get it.

I wouldn't put myself in that bracket, but it's one of those things. I think what helps is that we [with Tom Hardey] don't socialize, we don't really know each other, we purely work together.

Sometimes I fall into the trap of keeping too much to myself, but I think it's important to preserve certain things, it leaves something to the imagination.

I don't intend to stop showing a little cleavage. Nor do I intend to stop flashing a little thigh.

I just don't like to get intimate. I don't want anyone to know what I feel and what I think, and if they can't get some kind of an idea of what sort of person I am through my music, then that's too bad.

I make clothes for a woman who is not swayed by what her husband thinks.