Tea Leoni Quotes

1. Yes, I think motherhood has almost everything to do with it, but when I was pregnant with my daughter, I thought I'll never work again.


2. I just mean it's very difficult for me to watch my work, in some ways, because I am critical of what I didn't get across or I thought I was making one point.

3. I think a healthy slathering of neurosis is always fun to work with.




4. The one thing I think you must do is, as painful as it is as a parent, is listen.

5. I've looked at my roster and I'm ready to hold it up against Nicole Kidman. I mean, I got everybody she's got except for Tom and a few others.

6. I was desperate to go back to New York and when 9/11 happened, I feared moving to the bulls-eye and that was very hard because I have a lot of family there and I really had to question what I didn't like about this community.






7. And then I did Pilates, partly because I have found that that's maybe the most genius, therapeutic exercise, whatever, but also I thought perfect for that Beverly Hills/Bel Air white lady. 

8. Acting doesn't feel good. It's not comfortable to feel all this stuff, it's not.







9. I started in 1997 while I was on the television series "The Naked Truth". It seemed as if everybody in TV was holding important meetings on the seventh green: producers, writers, mostly guys. I thought it would be a really good idea to learn the game; we could all play golf and discuss the show. 

10. It was just this interesting, my first, the first time you hear your child in any way criticize you. It's the worst review of your life and it's really relieving to find out that they don't know what they're saying.

11. I don't do T&A very well because I haven't got much of either.

12. I was one of the most brilliant liars as a child.

13. Not to sound like a whore, but I've been with…I've worked with…some very attractive men. Nicolas Cage…Al Pacino…Ben Stiller…and Woody Allen.

14. Really it was the first time in my life that I recognized that acting is, I'm just going to say it, I am an artist, I have to do this, I have to do this.








15. (on the challenge of playing an athlete in Spanglish) I love tennis. I love very aggressive tennis, and I think I'm quite good. Golf, well, of course you can drink beer when you play that, but I take it pretty seriously, and I'm quite good at that. And I'm a good swimmer, and I used to compete in windsurfing.

16. At one point, I had 14 pairs of golf shoes.








17. Well, I think again, the worst part of it was just leading up to it, before we got on set, at least for me…dreading this idea that I was just going to suck and I really had strong feelings about that. I just didn't want to be that weak link.

18. (when asked what is the best thing about marriage to David Duchovny) David. The best thing about marriage is David.

19. But I've never looked at myself as being particularly funny.

20. We have this incredible cast with Billy Bob Thornton, who is maybe my new favorite person in the world.

21. I feel better. I feel hornier. I feel more womanly and more accomplished and prouder after having my daughter.


22. (about husband David Duchovny's off-Broadway debut) I think getting over opening night, his first opening night of his life, was a huge milestone. And he did it with such grace and flying colors. I'm very proud of him.

23. But I can tell you that the New York that I see now is not the New York that we grew up in. It's not 1973.

24. Hollywood means work and getting yourself out there, and for a while I pooh-poohed that idea. My ego still doesn't get stroked by fame. But I've been guided by people who have told me if you aren't out there, then studios and producers are less likely to pull you in to the projects you might want to do.



25. I dress up for awards, but only if somebody else is going to pay for the clothes. And shop for them, too!

26. I am not addicted to, attracted to, or neurotically pursuing stardom.

27. I have always loathed working out.

28. LA is a Hispanic culture.

29. I live by a hill. I began walking it and then I began jogging it and then I began sprinting it.

30. I was out at Sheep's Meadow and that's the coolest thing, to return to New York, the city that has people trampling over it and all this change all the time, and you can take a glance at something like Sheep's Meadow and be like…I can remember being on a rock at age 13 with a Frisbee and a joint.


31. I'm not a huge fan of my work.

32. I started taking burlesque a couple of years ago because, actually probably before Spanglish even was a thought because I very much recognized that I live in a place that is a Hispanic community, 48% I think at this point and I felt like I was missing it. 

33. I'm not quite ready for a no makeup movie.

34. I use Callaways. I have a driver with a firm flex. Honestly, I think you might as well get the biggest thing at the bottom of the stick and go for the ocean.

35. I have a fast swing and I can outdrive a lot of the men I play with. Of course, I only play with people from retirement communities. I can hit it 200 yards. I've seen 230. 

36. I've been in a gym probably nine days of my life.


37. Every time I do a press junket, I get sick...what do you think that is? It's like, how odd, my sicknesses are so predictable.

38. It's kind of fun to be sexy.

39. If I swim in the ocean, I have a shark thought. Not a bad one, but just a little one.

40. Shopping turns me off.

41. People don't know this, but early in your career, you don't just glide on to "The Tonight Show".

42. It's my impression that with this relatively low infection rate growing, Vietnam is very poised and ready and committed to stopping HIV/AIDS.

43. Jim Brooks is a very powerful director and it was a lot of intense work.

44. Sometimes, I feel that Manhattan in particular has gotten really tame and gentrified or something.




45. The bookies won't be able to pay. 

46. Well, I don't find glamour and clothing relevant.

47. Well what I will tell you is for this movie, I got into probably the best shape of my life.

48. Yes, I guess I am bi-coastal.

49. First of all, returning from motherhood, I was looking for something lighter, and I wasn't as much attracted to Kate as I was to the relationship between the two people.

50. And I thought, you know, I have to say that maybe the whacked out mother is my new favorite role, but I don't want to just do it and become Nurse Ratchett.


51. I don't mean to be presumptuous that men don't feel this, I don't mean this, but I found that when my child was born, my first child, it felt like my heart broke.

52. I don't think, there's no possible way for me, anyway, to play a character that I haven't found some sort of sublime compassion for and I related to Deborah on a way that almost, initially, almost in a way maybe someone in the audience might.


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