I had not starred in an independent film and it's about a woman who owned a hair salon.

You have to be a star to be in this business.

Apart from being Jennifer Lewis. The name pulls people in.

I've been burn when it comes to my hair that it ain't no joke.

It's important to e alive in those moment, especially when you're doing something you love to do.

You are a black goddess when you come out the salon.

If you just want to be a star, go away.

If you don't love it, don't touch it.

I don't have any beauty shop memories. I remember the barber shop.

A diva is someone who pretends to know who she is and looks fabulous doing it.

What if Whitney was at her top, and we brought in a name like Whitney Houston, it would sell.

I still go to a salon where a gal does my hair, and I don't know if it's because I'm a celebrity but by the time I leave there, we are eating chicken and talking and screaming.

I'm in the moment. I'm always in the moment of life.

I want to co-produce again.

We didn't have a beauty shop as I grew up.

If you can find something you love, go for it everyday of your life, and it would be really good to you.

Sometimes I think I take on a lot of work but that's me.

America has a relationship with Bobby and Whitney.

Saturday night is when my hair would be fixed up and that was my memory.

But a true diva has dismissed that drama. A true diva's heart is open, and she's ready to play by her own rules - rules that are gentle and kind.

I had not starred in an independent film and it's about a woman who owned a hair salon.

Whoopi and I have been friends ever since she claimed she couldn't sing on the set of Sister Act.

You never know when you start a project just how good it can be.

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.

If you can find something you love go for it everyday of your life and it would be really good to you.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

If he didn't fall in love he would have never come back near the end of the film. Because, what man is going to dishonor himself so that he comes back in front of the man that took a woman away from him... and warns her to save her life?

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist.

I have a movie coming out called Spun, which will be at the Toronto Film Fest.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, start them!

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.

When I said I was going to audition for a film, I got a hearty laugh from all my family.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.