Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I don't have a political bone in my body.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I was a very good girl for a long time, that's what really drew me to acting. The stage was the perfect place to be outrageous, to be sad, to be angry, to be all these different things.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

Almost any film that you do is an opportunity to open you up and make you more aware of an area that you might not be thinking about. That's what is kind of cool, or one of the cool things about this profession.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I was the good girl. The straight A student, on the honour roll, part of the choir... I played the cello badly. I did plays.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I never liked the bar scene. I tried to like it. I would give it a try every three or four months. I'd think, tonight I'm going out. But I never met anybody in that circumstance.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I had gone through a mother having dementia in the last couple of years of her life. She was in a nursing facility in my little hometown area of northern Illinois, so I got to see a lot of other patients there in various stages of the disease. I had a firsthand exposure to it in a pretty big way.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I didn't really think about being a movie star. I was more about theater.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I certainly do get at the end of my rope at times. We all do.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I wasn't one of those kids who was like, 'Get me to New York. Get me to a big city.' I was always much more shy. All I knew was that I loved to act.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

How do we escape who we are? I think, going to college, I felt freer. I loved the clean slate. I wasn't known as the sort of nerdy, studious girl. I met gay people for the first time in my life. I needed that expansion from a very conservative little town.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I think there's been a tendency to place me in what has been characterised as the 'moral centre' of the film. In films like 'The Ice Storm' and 'The Crucible' and 'Nixon,' that's the sort of the persona that emerged.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I love to walk three to four miles a day if I can.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful, even if it was just vicariously.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I'm not a huge risk taker. I think that, for me, I take certain kinds of risks, but if you look at me, you wouldn't say I was a big risk taker. I'm not going to jump out of an airplane and parachute and things like that. That's not really me.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

When I read something, first I have an instinctual, emotional response to it. But of course, acting isn't only just feeling an instinct for what's going on in the moment with the character. You have to be able to carve it out and consider, follow, and create the whole journey that the character you play is going through.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

It's such a great feeling to make people laugh. I know I've made people cry or want to slit their wrists, but to make people laugh is a very intoxicating, wonderful thing.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I think that I do separate myself a fair amount. And I don't feel like I am representing women. That's up to however people interpret it once they sort of see it.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I get recognised sometimes. But I just live my life. I get on the bus, I get on the subway, it's not a problem.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I'm hard to pin down. I tend to look different in films.

Joan Allen
Joan Allen

I think I knew acting was what I wanted to do. But I was from this small town and there was no place for an adult to recognise it.