Mary Elizabeth Winstead Quotes

I just learned how to drive a stick shift on my last film, finally. I had never learned to do that, so that is something that I’m planning on continuing to take with me. Also, my martial arts training is something that I want to keep up with after doing it three movies in a row now. I feel like it would be a real waste to just stop that when I do feel like I’ve been progressing quite a bit.

My hope and my optimistic point of view is that ultimately people will always need that human element.

I tend to try to be pretty level in my everyday life and on set as well. When I’m not acting, I try to be pretty even-keeled and level. I try to keep myself as calm as I can be. It’s sort of a good state to be in if you don’t know what state you’re going to have to put yourself in from day to day. As an actor, you don’t necessarily know exactly how far you’re going to have to go or what you’re going to have go through for a character. So I try to focus on being calm and happy. I try to keep my stress level pretty low so that I’m not bringing any of that home with me.

I’ve been very lucky. Most of my career I’ve been considered an up-and-comer, which is sort of funny sometimes when you’re an up-and-comer after 15 years. But I’m really grateful because it makes me feel like I’ve been on this slow climb, and I feel very grateful to be still rising and still trying to reach my potential. There’s been times where it’s been scary. Every actor has those moments when you think this is your last project and no one is going to pick up the phone for you again. I go through that all the time, but then somehow something always comes along and it reinvigorates your spirit and carries you through the next phase. So I always keep that confidence that it’s going to happen even in the dark moments. That’s worked for me so far. Maybe I’ll still be an up-and-comer in five years, and I’ll be OK with that.

If you have a problem and you're also successful, everyone does whatever they can to keep it going. I see that a lot.

I love anybody who's willing to stick to their own vision, their own voice, who's not easily swayed by money or by financiers who are going to tell them what they should do.

There’s always going to be challenges and barriers, but you have to be adaptable and go, "OK, if that’s not going to work for me, then this is a passion I have as well." I was passionate about a lot of things in the performing arts, so I was lucky ballet wasn’t the only love in my professional life. I wanted to perform, and I didn’t feel ballet was going to allow me to do that to the extent that I wanted to. Acting seemed like a good transition from that.

I’m probably more laid-back in a lot of ways. I was very type-A as a kid, and I wanted to be the best at everything. Now I’ve definitely learned that this is not the best [quality] to have. You need to be able to screw up and learn from it.

I think you go through a lot of it, just kind of repressing that stress. You’re like, ‘Everything’s great, everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Nothing bothers me.’ And then one day it just kind of hits you in the face. You know, where you have to acknowledge [the stress]. …There’s a stigma about complaining about work, I guess because it’s so hard to do what we do and it’s a dream for so many people. You feel like you don’t have the right to complain about anything.

I think I automatically pick things up…I feel like I’m able to use my body and pick up the choreography in order to use it to move the story and character forward. That was something I was used to doing in ballet — and performing in pieces where I’d be creating a character with my body and expressing it that way. So that’s something that I still really love to do, and I think that’s partly why action is something that I’ve really taken to.

I think my drive to work has gone up a bit since I’ve gotten older. The more I work the happier I am. I’m also finding a lot more roles that are exciting and challenging for me on a more regular basis.

I started acting before Instagram and Twitter and it was a different thing back then, but we’ve all kind of been swept up and I was swept up in it for a while. It was like, OK, this is what everybody else is doing. I’m going to have this many selfies, I’ve got to get this many likes, I’ve got to do what everybody else is doing. And then I realized that I had started taking part in all of that without really realizing it and figured out that it wasn’t not moving me. So it felt really good to let it go. And I feel much more authentically me when I’m not on it.

I try to stay pretty zen on set for the most part because it can help make it easier to dip in and out of all of these different moods. So I just try to stay really calm and that way, whatever mood I have to go into, I can always come back to that place. It’s not super hyper, super bubbly, but it’s something calm that it’s easy for me to come in and out of.

Initially I started to back off of social media mainly for privacy reasons. But as soon as I was off of it, it was like this huge wave of relief where I felt kind of a weight lifted off of them. Like, oh wow! I don’t have to spend my days scrolling on my phone. I don’t have to be sucked into this anymore. I can actually focus on just living and enjoying my day itself and not focusing so much on what I’m supposed to share or what I’m supposed to receive and take in but actually just live my life.

But as an actor you do want to challenge yourself and step outside what you have done in the past and that what I like to do, I like to jump around and try different things and stretch myself.