Donna Mills Quotes (37 Quotes)

The lighting is so important. One thing that makes me nuts about the lighting now is that they spend an enormous amount of time lighting the set, the background. But the most important thing in the scene is the actor.

I'm back to doing everything I used to, loving life as ever.

I have been asking for years for documentation from staff on why the current configuration is a good thing academically, ... There is nothing to prove that it is.

My message is - keep moving. If you do, you'll keep arthritis at bay.

I was tired of playing the goodie-two-shoes.

You know, when they called me about the role, I thought Knots Landing was a show about a houseboat with Andy Griffith!

Even colors were important to me. If it was a somber scene, the colors were muted and dark. If it was a happy or seductive scene, the colors were brighter.

One of my favorite movies is The Little Foxes.

Early on in my career, I'd go into the makeup trailer, and they'd spend an hour doing my makeup, and I would hate it. I'd go into the bathroom, wash it off and start over again, which took an enormous amount of time. So I just started doing it myself.

Abby would do things that weren't very ethical, but she was never evil. She had a humanity that characters like her on the other soaps didn't have.

I really want to spend as much time as I can with my daughter and really participate in her growing up. I'm very active in her school.

I was brought up Catholic, and my family is still very religious.

I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.

I also loved musicals because I was a dancer.

That's certainly what I grew up with-ballet and musical comedy. My mother taught ballroom dancing and, I think, would have liked to have been a dancer herself. So she pushed me a lot when I was very young, but I loved it. All I really wanted to be was a dancer. There's a discipline in dance that you don't get anywhere else.

I was always cutting dialogue out when we were rehearsing, and when I produced movies, too. I felt that people don't say things in life - they act, they do things. I always wanted my characters doing, rather than saying what they were doing - which was redundant.

You really have to love the work. You can't look for stardom. That's a by-product.

My father was a middle manager at an oil company, but I never knew anything about his work. Whatever business acumen I have just got gleaned over the years.

I always wore the highest heels possible, because the other women on the show were tall.

There were episodes where I would wear seven or eight outfits. It took a lot of time to get those together. What the character wears is very essential to how I create the character.

Scarlett O'Hara didn't think she was manipulating. That's just the way she got what she wanted.

I found through my fan mail that women... really wanted a role model.

I always loved Bette Davis-she's probably my very favorite. She had an influence on me in that I felt I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking the things she wanted me to know about. When you're in extreme close-up, all you have to do is think, and the thoughts will read.

A lot of actors just do whatever they do, and wherever the camera is, it is. They don't pay much attention, but I always did. I was always very close to the camera crew. They were my best buddies, no matter what movie or show I was doing.

I was very uncomfortable in the habit-all that starched white stuff. I smoked at the time and used to love to walk down the halls of CBS with a cigarette dangling out of my mouth. People were just aghast.

The sound department was constantly yelling at me. I don't have a very loud voice to begin with. A lot of times, they'd put a lavaliere mike on me and crank it up.

If there is anything I would do differently in my life, it is that I would study business more. I'm trying to teach my daughter Chloe at an early age about investing and money so she's not afraid of it.

When I first started out, I did some modeling, and I used to feel tremendously inferior because I'm 5'4, and I was always around these 6-foot women. I felt like a shrimp. And I hated that.

Dallas and Dynasty would be finished at 430 in the afternoon. On Knots, we never shot less than a 12-hour day. Everybody tried to make it special. And I think it showed.

Rita Hayworth in Gilda... there's not a shot of her in that movie that isn't gorgeous.

I feel more comfortable in front of a camera than anywhere else.

I thought it was very important that femininity wasn't lost.

I would spend at least one day a week-whatever day I had off-shopping for the next show. A lot of times, I'd have seven or eight outfits in one show. There might be a gown or cocktail dress, but... I felt the clothes had to be special.

Once I left Knots Landing, I didn't shop for years. I was so tired of shopping

I always wanted to know what lens they were on, how close they were. I didn't do it with a plan in mind, but I would instinctively gear what I was doing toward what lenses they were using.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.

They sent me to catechism classes and then to first grade in a Catholic school, and apparently I cried and moaned and bitched so much that they took me out.