Unexpected Recognition Quotes

Somehow you've been voted something for a magazine, and it's a complete mystery to me. I wake up and I have to look at that head when I brush my teeth every morning, you know. And it's weird. And it's unpleasant at times.

We made this movie for $17, and nobody got anything. So it never dawned on me that we would get real people.

When we left Mumbai to play in the World Cup there were hardly any journalists to see us off. But when we returned to India on July 25 having made the final, there were close to a hundred journalists at 2.30 in the morning. It was totally new.

It was never an ambition to grow up and win an Academy Award, so when it happens, you go, 'Weird!'

Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?

All I did from day-to-day is coach. That's what my job was, that's what my passion was, and the fact that now it's something I'm being considered for is just mind-blowing to me, that I would ever be in that kind of company.

When somebody brings up a movie (of mine) that I haven't heard about in a long time, I feel like a 70-year-old pitcher at a bar somewhere, and somebody walks in and says, 'Oh, my God, I was in St. Louis and I saw you. You pitched a shutout.' It's real. I really did do that, because someone today remembers it.

I've never really been star struck. I was a little bit taken aback when I was doing a chat show recently and I was sat in the make-up chair chatting to a guy say next to me but I couldn't look round and see who it was, it was only when I got up I realised it had been Bryan Adams I'd been talking to!

It's nice if I am called a role model, because I never thought that I would be a role model for anyone else.

I never thought in a million years that I would be called a role model for girls and even boys, too.

The first time I felt I was famous was when I went to the movies with my mom. I had gone to the loo, and someone in the bathroom said in a very loud voice, Girl in stall No. 1 were you in Mystic Pizza? I paused and I said, yeah that was me.

It's the weirdest thing. When you go into acting, you expect to be a huge star and to be recognized... It did happen, but not in the way you expect it to... In L.A., I'm just another character actor.

Not that I knew who you were until last month. But now that I've got you, I'm not letting you go." "You're not?" Blake stared at her in irritated confusion. What was her game? "Do you think I'm an idiot?" he spat out. "No," she said. "I've just escaped from a den of idiots, so I'm well familiar with the breed, and you're something else entirely. I am, however, hoping you're not a terribly good shot.

I felt very greatly honoured to be given a Damehood and never expected to receive anything else. So for Her Majesty to bestow a further accolade on me is very unexpected and I feel even more honoured.

I stopped singing and they gave me an award.

About 10 minutes [into the dinner] my sister texted me and said, "Maria, I just wanted to let you know that you're on TV live. You're front and center." I thought, 'Oh God, I'm right behind Donald Trump and in the camera shot. After that I stopped moving. I just sat there. It was funny. I was delighted that people noticed my white gloves. It was a white tie dinner, for the dais you had to be in white tie. If I can't channel my best Sophia Loren glamour for a white tie affair, when can I? I thought it was an excellent opportunity to wear the white gloves.

One dance had made me the most famous colored woman in the world.

I'm incredibly proud to have been nominated in the past and it really means a lot to me because I do work very hard when I'm making a film and I do really do absolutely give my all. To get that kind of pat on the back, it's really amazing and also never something that I anticipated would possibly happen to me, ever. So I am very, very proud to have been there before. And, you know, the nice thing about nominations is that, same as awards, no one can actually take them away from you and I'm proud of that.

I rarely get recognized, and whenever I do, it has to do with 'The Leftovers' because it came into someone's life at a particularly important time for them - if they were dealing with grief or loss or whatever tragedy - and they just caught it. And there is no rhyme or reason to the kind of person it is.

It turns out that a Nobel is also followed by other recognitions, and perhaps the most unexpected of these is that the Japan Karate Association in Tokyo has now made me an honorary 7th-degree black belt, something that, given my athletic abilities, is even more unimaginable than being an Economic Sciences Laureate.

My first record had just broken, and these guys wanted my autograph. I thought, Oh, god, they recognize me. Turns out they thought I was Heidi Fleiss.

I didn't grow up thinking, 'Oh, maybe someday I'm going to have a shoe named after me.'

I knew Secrets and Lies was a great film, but I didn't expect it to get the attention it did because none of his other films had and I thought they were just as good.

I'm more of a tomboy than anything and then you see your name on these Top 50 Most Beautiful People lists and you're like, 'What?'