Julia Stiles Quotes

I wear everything from hip-hop baggy pants to beautiful Armani dresses.

I also like to mix vintage clothing with designer pieces.

I'm going to Columbia University but I'm trying to keep that low-profile because I don't want weird people following me there. I want the experience of normal college life.

It's actually really great to be a student and an actor, because I get to do this job that I love, then just when I think my head might explode, I get to go to school where they don't really care about what magazine cover I'm on.

I like analyzing human behavior. It's complex. That's what keeps me going.

I tend to gravitate toward the more powerful roles.

As opposed to the doe-eyed girl who bats her eyelashes and runs around in towels, you now what I mean? Because that kind of makes me want to vomit.

I always feel like a goofy little kid.

I think that ultimately I just have to be myself.

You know, I don't do anything that outlandish anyway.

I think audiences, producers and directors included, develop crushes on actors (actresses in particular) and then lose interest and move on to the next one.

Yoga has stopped me from destroying my joints after running.

It slows me down. My brain and body can go into overdrive - yoga teaches me to focus on the moment and not get ahead of myself.

If I'm gong out to a club I like to have fun with it.

I'll use blue or red sparkly eyeliners and glittery eye shadows. Then I'll put on some blue mascara. I focus on the eyes.

The exercise in theater is night after night you are doing the same play, but you have another opportunity to explore. It changes nightly even because of the audience and your day going into the evening of the performance. With film it's much more controlled.

Education is huge for me. I went to public school until I turned thirteen, and was lucky enough to afford college once I became successful as an actress. I cannot believe that quality education costs as much as it does in this country. Ghetto Film School is a remarkable public high school in New York City where students get to learn to express themselves through filmmaking, and have hands-on access to equipment.

It's not my job to critique the writing.

I'm there to serve it. I had to figure out a way to make it work.

Theater makes working in movies or TV seem like a cake-walk.

Actors can write and produce too. Then when I was working on Jason Bourne­ - having had that experience - instead of going back to my trailer and being separate from everyone else, I would sit behind the monitor and watch Paul Greengrass work and be much more included in the process. That was new for me and really enriching.

The thing with the Bourne movies is that they're so big in scope and the production value is so high and it takes so much organization.

I’ve really turned a corner recently in terms of not taking work too seriously, so it is much easier for me to not take my work home.

In my early career, I look at that time as a series of trial and error and learning as I go.

Being an actor is looked at like a prolonged game of dress-up.

America puts movie stars on pedestals. In college, it's the flip side. I sometimes have to justify my job to my professors because they're focused on intellect and ideas.

Education is huge for me. I went to public school until I turned thirteen, and was lucky enough to afford college once I became successful as an actress.

I pretty much grew up in public.

In my worst moments, I try to think about loving instead of hating.

Creation versus destruction, know what I'm sayin'?

It's fun to stay at the Y! M! C! A!

Theater is like going to the gym for actors.

I met this homeless man who had never owned a shirt in his life.

He had taken his pants and worn them as a shirt and I thought it was so creative. He was liberated from the conventions of fashion.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of people paying for sex and what goes on with that and why that happens.

My grandmother took me to a lot of theater.

I was exposed to performance quite a bit - everything from Broadway to off-Broadway and dance and music as well. I was very lucky that way. It was a very rich childhood.

Even after such milestones as Kathryn Bigelow winning an Oscar, there still seem to be few women in leadership roles.

I always loved how people like Jon Voight and Laurence Olivier shocked you every time they came on-screen. They were so different each time. That's what I hope to do with acting - be the chameleon and not get stuck in a type.

I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then.

When Paul [Greengrass] was writing, he'd send me story ideas that he had.

He was particularly interested in social movements and revolutions that had been happening all over the world, and how computers and the internet had helped those movements. He encouraged me to read a book about Anonymous, the hacker group called "white hat" hackers, meaning they're driven by ideology and social disruption as opposed to just greed.

Bill Pullman is older than Aaron Eckhart - although I was older too - and the age difference changes the play. My perspective on those issues had changed a lot. Without going into nerdy details about that play, there was something that still stuck with me. I still had the same joy in that dialogue and David Mamet's rhythm in terms of his writing. I felt like there was still something to explore.

Fundamentally women and men are different.

I took the role of Ophelia in Hamlet because she is so naive, loving, and innocent.

I think women get caught up too much in having a plan - 'I'm going to get married at this age; I'm going to have a kid at this age' - and then they just try to find a guy who will fit into that picture. I don't want my life to be based on that.

I think it's really special to be a part of something that people are still watching or thinking about or interested in, or remember fondly many years later. I don't think it's annoying at all.

I did a different production with a different director and Bill Pullman.

Oleanna­ - the one you saw - we were doing right after Bourne Identity or right after it came out.

My regular school didn't know what to do with me!

With film, so much is in the director's hands.

Once something is cut together - unless you're in the editing room - you don't really remember what the alternatives are.

Sometimes I have these abstract ideas and then lose track of myself.

There are a handful of actors who sustain interest because it's exciting to watch them get better at what they do. I want to be one of those actors.

I am forever a romantic. I try to bring that into my work. I try not to be fooled by romance. Or work.

I used to struggle a lot with dwelling on how the day at work was, and I would dwell on my performance. Now, I'm like, "Well, that's over and done with, and I can't control the outcome, so move on." I just remember that it's entertainment I am making.

Yoga has stopped me from destroying my joints after running. It slows me down.

I do think that the more takes you have the more opportunity to experiment [but] at a certain point, there are diminishing returns. There's only so much variety you offer.

I like a director who is very observant and is watching what I'm doing and noticing what I'm doing, but is giving me time to figure it out. They don't jump right in and give you a note before you've had time to really search on your own with how to do a scene.

I think I was born an artist. But the key is that I have a mom that encouraged and supported my artistic side. She still has the stick-figure drawings framed.

I was happy when I read the script [The Bourne Ultimatum ] - the first version they sent me - to see that before, there's some humanity too.

It was nice that there [ in the Bourne Ultimatum ] was a reference to the relationship . It's very subtle - it's actually without dialogue. I do think it's powerful even without words.