Quotes

I suppose that if you want to be famous and suddenly it happens and you don't like it, it's nobody's fault but your own.

Nudity in the flesh doesn't bother me. But having my mind uncovered - that scares the hell out of me.

God, [George W. Bush] makes me want to slash my wrists. He's so embarrassing I have to leave the room when he's on the news. What a monkey.

Acting's fun, but life's more important.

My grandson sees me as Lois on TV every Christmas, and that scores me points.

I guess I came to terms with my demons. Or else I'd be in big trouble, wouldn't I? Horrifying as it was to crack up in the public eye, it made me look at myself and fix it. People were exploitative; that's human nature. I'll tell you, being pretty crazy while being chased by the National Enquirer is not good. The British tabloids were the worst. But you take the cards you're dealt, and I got better. I'm now ferociously healthy in body and mind. You couldn't pay me to go near a psychiatrist again. Stopping seeing them was my first step to getting well.

It was exciting, but for a while being typecast as Lois made my vanity and narcissism scream. Hadn't people seen my other work? But now my grandkids watch it, and think I was Superman's friend, so that's a thrill.

The thing about being famous is, first of all, it's weird. The only people who get how weird it is are other famous people. So there's this unspoken club where you go, and say to each other: 'Oh God, if they only knew how ordinary I was, they wouldn't be interested.'

It was a wonderful time to be young. The 1960s didn't end until about 1976. We all believed in Make Love Not War - we were idealistic innocents, darling, despite the drugs and sex. We were sweet lovely people who wanted to throw out all the staid institutions who placed money and wars above all else. When you're young you think that's how life works. None of us were famous, we were broke. We didn't think they'd be writing books about us in 30 years. We were just kids doing the right thing.

With any group of people in life, sad things happen, and crazy things, and happy things. When you're in the public eye, it's just amplified, that's all. There's no curse.

What happened to me--the biggest nervous breakdown in history, bar possibly Vivien Leigh's--is not so uncommon. I've had thousands of supportive letters from all over the world. It's just that mine was public. If you're gonna fall apart, do it in your own bedroom.

[on Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) A noble attempt at saying something about the nuclear proliferation on the planet through Superman. Unfortunately the script was just dreadful. I mean there's no two ways about it, that script was terrible. And there's that old saying in Hollywood - you can make a bad movie out of a good script, but you can't make a good movie out of a bad script. And I don't think it had a chance from the get-go.

I think the "curse of Superman (1978)" stuff is nonsense. I think it's just nonsense! The reality is if you get any group of people and you statistically say get a group of 100 people, X number is gonna have some sort of calamity in their life 'cause that's what life is.

[in 2008, on acting roles] There aren't a lot when you get to be my age if you refuse to have facelifts. They'd run me out of Montana! You don't need a facelift in Montana.

[on The Amityville Horror (1979)] What a piece of shit! I couldn't believe that anyone would take that seriously. I was laughing my whole way through it, much to the annoyance of Rod Steiger, who took the whole thing very seriously.

[on Richard Pryor] I fell in love with him in two seconds flat... He was smart and funny and sexy, and you wanted to take care of him. He was wonderful. Oh gosh... he was just - Richard was irresistible.

[On Martin Scorsese] Marty seemed wildly dedicated to creating a new kind of film, a film of substance, to putting his personal vision on film, to marrying his confusion at being a Catholic boy and the intensity of his own spirit with film itself. He loved people trying new things, he loved bravery of personal expression, and he talked about it a lot, very eloquently, albeit very quickly. I don't remember many silly talks with Marty about nothing.

[on being asked her favorite horror film to act in] Black Christmas (1974) had the intelligence to have a twinkle about itself, to have a good sense of humour about itself, so it wasn't quite as earnest! And Bob Clark was very clever and smart, and a good businessman, and great fun! He was absolutely lacking in pomposity of any kind.

I didn't get what fans were until I started doing these conventions and meeting these very moving, very, very sweet people. And until then, when you live in L.A., and you're playing that movie star game, that BS game, they're always seen as something you need to be kept from. 'God forbid I should be down on that level!' You know, forgetting of course we're all people, just all different schmucks on the subway.

[on acting in film and TV, 2008] I'm not choosy at all! I'll do practically anything. I'm the biggest whore on the block. I live in a little town in Montana, and you have to drag me out of here to get to L.A., so I'm not readily available. But unless it's something sexist or cruel, I just love to work. I've done all sorts of things, but you just haven't seen them because they're often very bad and shown at 4 in the morning.

I went through millions of dollars - I have no idea how much. I'd buy things for friends, take people to Paris. Once I stayed up for three weeks in a row because I felt I was called upon to write a new religion for women. I was reading all these books, including the Bible... and I'm an atheist.

[on acting in Superman II (1980)] Basically, for several weeks I sat around my dressing room, listened to music, read The Great Shark Hunt and Orwell and a lot of French literature, wrote letters, worked on a screenplay, went through the divorce, and every so often I went on the set and said a line like, 'Oh, Superman, Superman.'

I was the worst movie star on the planet. I was a disaster. You are supposed to be mysterious and elegant and all that stuff and I am none of the above... I had a lovely time, a wonderful life with some great adventures, but I didn't nurture a career along the way. I didn't know how to and I couldn't bear not working so I tended to just grab what came along. Some of the films I am most proud of are the ones no one has ever seen, like small independent ones.

One of my big attitudes about life is always been, the point of living is to use yourself up. When you die, you don't want things you didn't try out. I love a good adventure and there is nothing better than charging off and making a movie in a foreign country. You get to travel, you get overpaid. It's a pretty cushy life, there's not much to complain about. But I was so naive, I just assumed that because that's what I decided I was going to be when I was 10, that of course it would come true. I didn't like being famous as much as I thought I would. It was kinda creepy. It was like being a monkey in the zoo and having people stare at you all the time and feeling very much like your flaws were on display, which was a big surprise, I thought I would turn into a princess and suddenly be this glorious person like people I read about in movie magazines. Infact, I simply felt exposed.

[on Superman (1978)] I remember when we were making it I thought it was going to be a flop. A lot of it was arduous and dull. The flying I didn't think would work either. Nothing prepares anyone for that sudden thing of being world famous, it was such a shock. It wasn't something I really liked or something I was very good at.

[on her appearance on Janis Joplin/Gloria Swanson/Margot Kidder/Dave Meggyesy (1970)] Janis Joplin was the sweetest lost child on the planet and obviously wanted to be my friend. But I was so star struck it never occurred to me that somebody like her wanted to be my friend, so I blew it and she died two months later. I'll never forget that day and night.

You know, cynicism and romanticism are two sides of the same coin. So those of us who speak in cynical and black terms are those who actually are secretly idealistic. I don't think anybody would be an activist if they didn't have any hope.

The reason I'm barely seen in Superman III (1983) is that Time Out Magazine in London interviewed me and I said: These producers are beneath contempt. And they put it on the front page. So the producers didn't want to work with me anymore. That's why I only had about twelve lines... They had to put me in the movie, because I had a contract, but they only gave me twelve lines. And one was: Oh, Clark!

It was after somebody had shown me a movie magazine that I decided I wanted to become a movie star. Not an actress, a star! It was more exciting than living in a Canadian mining town. Much later I decided to be an actress.

[2016, on Amy Adams' Lois Lane portrayal in the DC Extended Universe films]: They took one of the best American actresses' around, Amy Adams, and didn't give her anything to do! I mean, how stupid is that? They made her what used to be the girlfriend, which kind of ended in the 60s with women's rights.

[on suggestions that Superman (1978) is a cult movie] Well, it's a classic. I wouldn't call it a cult movie; it's too expensive. It wasn't an underground thing at all.