What's it like to work with the JJL?

It's now 1 June and all is quiet on the JJL front for the time being... another four months or so until Margot at the Wedding a.k.a. My Most Anticipated Film of 2007 is released, but hopefully there will be some early test screenings or a trailer to keep us going before the summer is out. In the meantime, here's a selection of quotes from those men and women who have directed Leigh, acted with her, or simply admired her work over the years.

"I had my eyes on her for some time. Tough. Unusual. Not afraid to do strange things. When we started talking she was already working herself into the role. She was acting like a combination computer nerd/goddess… She is the female equivalent of Daniel Day Lewis. She is a brilliant and serious actor, and like a lot of brilliant and serious actors, she is punished." – eXistenZ director David Cronenberg

"I felt incredibly honored and touched to be nominated [for the Oscar for Georgia]. But it was hard to be separated from Jennifer, because she was the heart and soul of that film. While we were making the movie, I thought not only that she would get a nomination, but that she would win. I saw the kind of work she was doing. In my mind she will always be the greatest performance of that year, and a lot of other people thought so, too. Meryl Streep grabbed me at the Academy Awards. She said, 'Jennifer should be here!' and I said, 'I know!'"… I was glad I won [at the Independent Spirit Awards], because I got to get up there on that stage and look at Jennifer and say, 'I will support you any day!' I truly feel it was a privilege to support her in that role. She was the whirling dervish of that movie. She was the center of the film. What a thing to support!" – Georgia co-star Mare Winningham

"Jennifer is a constant inspiration to those of us who view acting as an art and not as a product." – Short Cuts and The Hudsucker Proxy co-star Tim Robbins

"One of the beauties of Jennifer's directing style is that even though she's written the script and has a roughly imagined result in mind, she allows the actors their freedom, while at the same time knowing when to rein in the madness of free-floating invention." – The Anniversary Party star Kevin Kline

"While most actors are attracted to parts that fit them like a glove, Jennifer chooses a part based on how many light years away it is from where she lives." – Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Anniversary Party co-star Phoebe Cates

"That girl is so sexy. GOD! It was a delight to get to know Jennifer Jason Leigh. She's sweet and really stern. And she loves herself and her body – and her tummy... I loved that Jennifer is so together, organized and bright. She's so smart and exquisitely sexy and feminine." – In the Cut director Jane Campion

"She has the same intelligence and mad, creative temperament [as Glenn Close and Faye Dunaway, other actresses he has directed]. It's a combination of being totally possessed and lucid at the same time." – Single White Female director Barbet Schroeder

"What Jennifer gets you to experience is Tralala and her suffering. The fact that she brings such dignity to such a degrading situation is an indication of her magnificence as an actress." – Last Exit to Brooklyn author Hubert Selby Jr. on the controversial gang-rape scene

"She is an extraordinary character actor, and it doesn't mean what it means in Hollywood, which is just people put out to grass playing small parts. She is bullshit-proof. She's got a real strong sense of the real world and of real people and the pain of existing and all that stuff." – Abigail's Party writer/director Mike Leigh

"Acting opposite [Adrien] Brody and Jennifer Jason Leigh scared me. I watch them work and just go, 'Pshoo, wow.' 'Wow' is actually the only word I can use to describe it. In my big scene with Jennifer, I nearly forgot what I had to do because I spent the entire time staring at her, going, 'How do you do that?'" – The Jacket co-star Keira Knightley

"I think she's one of the finest actresses I've ever worked with. She brings a tremendous intelligence to the part of Lizzie. Jennifer's strong – and Lizzie was a strong woman. She radiates independence, she has a real rebellious spirit – and that's Lizzie. She's beautiful, with a delicate quality – and that, too, is Lizzie. Jennifer is totally believable as someone who'd refuse to get married just because her father wants it. And she's totally believable as someone who'd fall in love with somebody from an entirely different era. It's just one of those things. She's bringing her whole soul into this piece, and you can see it on the screen." – The Love Letter director Dan Curtis


"It's so unfair. You get so famous that it becomes limiting. I'd much prefer to be a Jennifer Jason Leigh – just for me. There's nothing wrong with being a big movie star if that's what you want. But I'd just like to do roles that are different, challenging. I'd rather do quality work than pack 'em in at the mall." – Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and The Anniversary Party co-star Gwyneth Paltrow

"There's absolutely no ego involved with Jennifer. Now, I'm not saying that I've worked with a lot of young actresses who have huge egos, it's just that she completely immerses herself in what she's doing, but she's also not someone who stays in character during breaks or in-between scenes... She's just wonderful. She's so flexible, amazingly versatile and very hard-working. She loves what she's doing and she also loves whatever your ideas are." – Kansas City co-star Miranda Richardson

"She is a sensational actress, probably the best in America... But socially I felt no connection to her at all. I found her neutral. When she acts, it all comes out, all the devils and the angels. She's tortured. She's diabolical. She can be anything. Yet in real life it's almost as if she doesn't exist, as if she's always waiting for acting, and the acting is the real life. I drove her into a pit of filth and she never complained… She's not in it for entertainment; she's in it for something completely different, which I would call art. When she acts, she is really alive, and in between roles there seems to be a grey area where basically she feels uncomfortable or is not even interested." – Flesh & Blood director Paul Verhoeven

"I try to ask myself about different choices. But when I started to be convinced that Jennifer Jason Leigh would be good, and even great, in this movie, I was sure. She is a very feeling and very deep actress. Sometimes it takes her too far, even, because she's not afraid of taking risks... Some actresses sometimes, I think that they have photogenic souls. They are looking to the camera, and you see something inside, and Jennifer has this quality personally, if she allows herself to open up." – Washington Square director Agnieszka Holland

"Jennifer Jason Leigh is a wonderful actress. I'm a great, great fan of hers. I thought that when Robert Altman had done that fantastic film Short Cuts, that Leigh's performance in that was just extraordinary and on the basis of that I said to Castle Rock "I want her in this movie"... Jennifer is a very intelligent actress and, like Kathy [Bates], she will try anything and go for anything. Great actors go for it, they force themselves up to the precipice, and Jennifer and Kathy are on a par with any actor I've worked with. They are just great actors." – Dolores Claiborne director Taylor Hackford

"I admire Jennifer Jason Leigh for not choosing to be a big movie star – she's having the kind of career I would think of myself as wanting." – Teri Hatcher

"Jennifer Jason Leigh is as intimidating as Rutger Hauer because of her work ethic. I would want to go home and play a video game, whereas she was going home and she'd still be working. She was just incredible. I was learning. Jennifer and Rutger came to work very intense, and that was just inspirational. I was carrying the film, but I didn't have the experience or the tools that Jennifer or Rutger had as actors, and they were passing out a couple of tools to me... And that's the gift that I got walking away from that film." – The Hitcher co-star C. Thomas Howell

"Jennifer Jason Leigh is one of my favorite actresses working today" – Russell Crowe

"The actor or actress it has thrilled me the most to work with was Jennifer Jason Leigh – she is a really incredibly, scarily good actress. I've only been nervous around a few actors and she was one of them, because I knew that she would never screw up her lines ever... She was shockingly, scarily ready." – The Hudsucker Proxy co-star Bruce Campbell

"Well, I'm not an actress. What, you're going to put me and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the same scene and say I am an actress? I don't think so." – Amy Sedaris

"For me it's the chameleon aspect that always wins me over. I get very bored, like every other consumer, when you see an actor or actress and they look the same in every single movie and you tend to start thinking of them rather than the character… It's so lame when actors look the same in every movie. That's why I love Jennifer Jason Leigh so much. She utterly changes herself in every movie. I like her because she's sexy, vulnerable and truthful... She is my favorite actress of all time." – Drew Barrymore

"I don't think there's a better actress working today… She doesn't care whether the camera is up her nostrils, on the back of her head or on her foot. She's absolutely professional, she's very easy to work with and has great confidence about what she does. I just turn the switch on and she does it. I don't know anybody who's better. I think Jennifer's one of the few actresses who doesn't use her own personality; she manufactures these characters and becomes them. When she's Dorothy Parker, she's Dorothy Parker. And when she's Jennifer Jason Leigh, unless the room's empty, she's hardly there…" – Short Cuts and Kansas City director Robert Altman