Calista Flockhart (Actor)

". . . this society is so voyeuristic and intrusive. And when you're the object of that, it can be . . . hurtful. People love to stir things up. Even before I was in the tabloids, I didn't really believe them. . . .

"You know what? Gossip has been around since the beginning of time. It gives people a common ground. So there must be some value in it, right? But it kills me, this fascination with celebrities' personal lives. When I started reading the press about this couple who broke up and were on the cover of every newspaper as if they were the royal family [Flockhart mouths the names Brad and Gwyneth], I just thought the fascination with that was . . . unbelievable." --From US, May 1998.

". . . according to the press I'm dating somebody new every other day. I get around! And I live vicariously through my rumors." --Flockhart to TV Guide, May 1, 1999.

"I cast her because she's a very gifted actress who has a remarkable facility with the language. I didn't even understand that she meant anything at the box office." --director Michael Hoffman ("William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream") to Los Angeles, June 1999.

"I refuse to be put on the defensive. I'm an actress playing a fictional character. It's important to accept the character in the spirit in which it's given. The show's purpose is entertainment, not to provide a representation of all women. Ally is an individual. She doesn't necessarily behave the way all women behave." --Flockhart on her TV alter ego, quoted in Newsday, April 25, 1999.

"I've always been called fragile, a waif. What do they mean? Fragile in my soul? . . . I'm fierce. . . . I don't believe my weight is a problem. It's society's obssesion with my weight that's the problem." --Calista Flockhart to TV Guide, May 1, 1999.

"I've come to realize that being famous has no other worth than to use that fame for bettering and enriching the lives of others--and by 'enrichment' I don't mean my persona as a TV or movie star!" --Flockhart to syndicated columnist Liz Smith, reported by Smith on June 21, 2000.

"One of the reasons it's been said that I'm so hard on myself is because coming from the theater, the pace on television is so different, so incredibly fast.

"You do these 14-hour days, then you go home and memorize lines for the next day. You've never had a rehearsal, so the lines are sitting precariously in your head, and you're never fully on top of them. It can take a toll on your self-esteem, because you're not doing the best work that you know you can do." --Calista Flockhart quoted in Daily News, May 2, 1999.

"Onstage, I feel at home, comfortable, accepted, whole. It's like a drug for me." [She laughed.] "It doesn't sound too healthy, does it?" --From "The Risks She Takes" by Dotson Rader in Parade Magazine, January 13, 1999.

"She's getting torn apart for her body. I can show you pictures of her when she was my age and she was skinny-skinny then. The best thing I can think of, saying it in a nice way, is that she's neurotic. Her mind works really fast. I really vaue her friendship--she was like a sister to me--especially because it's harder to make friends with girls than with guys. Girls can be so catty and back-stabbing." --former stage co-star Melissa Joan Hart on Flockhart, quoted in Movieline, August 1999.

"She's just gifted. There's never a day when I'm writing when I ask myself, 'Can Calista do this?' It never gives me pause. There's nothing she can't do." --"Ally McBeal" creator David E Kelley quoted in the Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1998.

"There's this idea that if you're on television, you must not be a very good actress. That's a stigma that's going to take time to go away." --Flockhart quoted in The New York Times, May 2, 1999.

"To get to Broadway, I thought, was the most beautiful experience imaginable." --Calista Flockhart to Patrick Pacheco in InTheater, July 5, 1999.

Flockhart was a member of the now defunct Malaparte., a theater company whose members included Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Frank Whaley, Josh Hamilton and playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman.

On receiving the offer to audition for "Ally McBeal", Flockhart told Steve Pond in Los Angeles (June 1999): "I was busy rehearsing for 'Three Sisters' but every time I turned around, they had called back. And finally I sat down and read it, and I saw this opportunity. It's about a woman--she's the protagonist--and her inner thoughts, and it's emotional, and it can be pretty much whatever I want it to be. It's this huge playing field full of contradictions and complexities. But then there was the reality of, What if it goes? So the entire cast of 'Three Sisters' spent a weekend deciding whether I was going to fly out to L.A. to audition.

". . . I was really tired of being poor. It's very difficult to make a living in the theater, and I was so sick to death of living hand to mouth. I thought, What do you have to lose?"