Marlee Matlin

Actress

1965-08-24

Quotes by Marlee Matlin

• When it comes down to it, it's about who you know, and who's a fan. It's about whether you're the right age, whether you're hot or not, whether the studio is into you or not.

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• I like to play around with people who don't know me. Often I'm talking to people through my speaker phone, and after 10 minutes or so they say, 'Wait a minute, Marlee, how can you hear me?' They forget I have an interpreter there who is signing to me as they talk. So I say, 'You know what? I can hear on Wednesdays.'

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• If I were offered a cochlear implant today, I would prefer not to have one. But that's not a statement about hearing aids or cochlear implants. It's about who you are.

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• Popular broadcast shows and movies have their closed captions stripped when they go to the Internet.

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• Living modestly in a suburban neighborhood while trying to support four children through private school is not extravagant or living large.

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• I did my first series lead back in 1991 on a show called 'Reasonable Doubts' and have done many shows with other actors who are deaf. But 'Switched at Birth' is the first TV show where there is more than one actor who is deaf or hard of hearing and who are series regulars.

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• I would love to do a talk show. Naturally, I would love to do more films. I'd love to be able to see casting directors more willing to put in a character who happens to be deaf. I'm not talking about doing deaf storylines, but putting in deaf characters. I'd love to be able to do Broadway.

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• As a kid, during the school year, my head was often buried in a textbook or Judy Blume book; the words and pictures were the perfect, barrier-free environment for me.

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• I listen to Billy Joel. He is fabulous. I saw him with Elton John when they toured together, it was so great.

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• It seems we're always in transition and that it's more about trends than it is about what's meaningful.

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• I've been around since I was 19, I won the Oscar when I was 21, I've had a couple of TV series. I've continued to work despite the predictions of some naysayers.

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• When I was 13, I told Henry Winkler I wanted to act. He said, Do it and don't let anyone stand in your way. His validation just made it all the more true. I haven't stopped thanking him since.

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• I can hear you and I can watch your mouth move, and then I put together the sounds and the visual image, and I can understand the words as I integrate the two signals.

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• I began acting on stage when I was 7 years old. My first role was as Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz' at Chicago's Center on Deafness in Northbrook, Illinois.

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• I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and in spite of what most people might have expected from a young girl growing up deaf, life for me was like one long episode of 'The Brady Bunch.' Despite whatever barriers were in my way, I imagined myself as Marcia Brady skating down the street saying 'hi' to everyone, whether they knew me or not.

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• I was the youngest and only girl in a family of two older brothers.

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