Ann Dowd

All I ever wanted was a successful career as an actress.

Anything or anyone that limits the dream you have for yourself and for your career is just to be dismissed. Do not keep that company, and do not hear those words.

I think women are used to stepping up and getting the job done when you need to.

I was so grateful to win an Emmy, but just being nominated, it's not overrated!

My parents were strict but loving.

In general, between an actor and a character, there needs to be a falling in love, if you will - which I'm saying in quotes.

In my experience as an actor over so many years, I don't know when I have been touched so deeply on so many levels as I have been by 'The Leftovers' in my three years there. It is a profound exploration of life, of grief, of loss.

Wherever the career wasn't going the way I wanted it to, I would experience those disappointments, and I would put them somewhere where I could say, 'Come on now, you're still working. Keep your focus where it belongs.'

I was the second oldest of seven children, and chores were a way of life for us. If your task wasn't completed, you were called right back to finish it.

Life gets more interesting as it goes on. It becomes fuller because there is perspective there.

When I think of those in the 'far right' or those who are pro-life to the extreme and at all costs protect the unborn, the thing that enrages me is you want to ask every one of them, 'How many foster children are in your home now?'

It's a question of dropping the armor and getting up and doing the work you want to do. And film at first is frightening because you are like, 'What's that camera doing?' But then it becomes family and therefore a really wonderful experience.