Sally Field Quotes

Acting is a life experience. I'm always learning things when I'm making a movie. So the fame part of it is fine when you consider what you get out of this job.

When I was 15, I was asked to do 'Cyrano de Bergerac' at school, and it fundamentally changed my life. It's obviously an extraordinarily diverse and potentially electrifying part. It's a big leading part, and I hadn't really played anything like that before; I was the one doing the comedy side bit.

The basic answer is that I wasn't happy or fulfilled by the job I had and I wanted my life to mean something to me, so I searched my life experience and realized that acting and performing were activities that I enjoyed all aspects of.

I think the only reason I wanted to do modeling, really, was because I knew I wasn't ready to act; I knew I didn't have enough life experience, and I knew that doing photo shoots was a way of acting. Playing a character each shoot and being able to just emerge yourself in these awkward experiences - it was amazing.

Life experience is what defines our character, even if it means getting your heart broken or being lied to. You know, you need the downs to appreciate the ups. Going on the adventure or taking that risk is important.

I've tried to reinvent myself from time to time, and I enjoy doing movies.

As an actor, I'm not sure what I had to offer the world of tragedy and comedy when I was 21. I hadn't lived a whole lot. By my middle 30s, you know, I had been knocked around a little bit.

I started out pursuing an acting career out of college when I lived in Los Angeles. When I got an entry into broadcasting, I preferred it. I liked being me, rather than dressing up to be someone else. Now I'm 30 and doing a career of my own and have been in this career for eight years.

On my fifth film, it was then that I stopped dancing.

I don't know if it's that the scripts are evolving or just that I'm getting older, but the characters become more interesting as you get older because you've lived more life at different stages. You've loved; you've lost; you have more of that journey.

Each experience I go through - marriage, my public life, my personal life - I'm learning as I go.

Every experience makes you grow.

I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience, otherwise why go for it? I have to change me, and I have to learn things, and I have to push me and my limits. By acting, I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way.

Life is an aggregate of experience, which continually surprises us.

Working on 'Gossip Girl' was a fantastic experience. It was my first real gig and I'm thankful for it - I got to learn a lot. I'm glad I got to explore getting comfortable in my own shoes in the background on a show like 'Gossip Girl.'

Life experience is not something to be denied, but to be celebrated.

I've been lucky enough - well, maybe unlucky enough - to have had a lot of friends who have had their ups and downs. And for an actor, that's good. Life experience in any regard is good. So I've seen a lot and I've had my own experiences.

I had been singing all my life, but I started acting in high school.

I realized that, after tasting entrepreneurship, I had become unfit for the corporate world. There was no turning back. The only regret I had was having wasted my life in the corporate world for so long.

After I play every character, I always walk away and feel a little different. I've experienced something that's not my life, but I've made it my life.

I don't regret doing any of my films. All of them have been great learning experiences, and they have contributed to making me what I am today.

Seriously I suspected I was a good actor, though I didn't know it during 'Monsoon Wedding.' Now I realize the more I learn, the less I know about acting... and life.

I can't do a role or character unless I have lived that character. For me, the best teacher is life.

We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be.

As an actor, you get to sort of bounce back and forth in terms of the age range you play and the life experience that your characters have.