Shelley Duvall Net Worth

Shelley Duvall's Quotes

• [on Stanley Kubrick's method of shooting multiple takes of every scene] Have you seen the film Groundhog Day (1993)? Well, that's what it was like.
• [on director Terry Gilliam] Terry is one of those people that everybody wants to please, because he has such a great sense of humor, and he cares so much about his work, that he just makes everyone else care. Terry really is a true artist. In every way, he lives and breathes his work, and enjoys the hell out of it.
• [on working with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining (1980)] For a person so charming and so likable - indeed lovable - he can do some pretty cruel things when you're filming. Because it seemed to me, at times, that the end justified the means. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Why? Because of Stanley, and it was a fascinating learning experience. But I wouldn't want to go through it again.
• When I turned 18, I felt I was grown up. Then when I was 21, I reflected, "Boy, I was just a kid then; now I'm grown up." The same thing happened when I was 27. It wasn't until I was in my early 30s that I realized it was a futile goal to have. You're never grown up. We're all still dealing with the same hopes, same fears, same dreams that we had as children.
• The trick to acting is not to be afraid. If you're not afraid of making mistakes, you usually don't make them.

Interesting Facts about Shelley Duvall

1. Milos Forman considered her for the role of the prostitute in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). While screening Thieves Like Us (1974) to see if she was right for the role, he became interested in Louise Fletcher, who had a supporting role, and decided to cast her as Nurse Ratched.
2. Was romantically involved with Paul Simon from 1976 to 1979. He was the one to tell her she had won Best Actress at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival for her performance in Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977). She was intended to star opposite Simon in One-Trick Pony (1980), which Simon wrote as a vehicle for the two of them while they were together. He broke up with her at the airport as she was about to board a plane to London to begin filming The Shining (1980). Simon made the film with Blair Brown.
3. Served as chairman for the Golden ACE committee for the National Cable Television Academy's ACE Awards. [1987]
4. Inducted into the Home Video Hall of Fame with fellow actress Jane Fonda. [December 1985]
5. Once lived with 11 dogs, 12 parrots and 58 finches, budgie and cockatiels. [May 1989]
6. Played chess with Stanley Kubrick between takes on The Shining (1980).
7. Film critic Pauline Kael once referred to her as "the Female Buster Keaton".
8. Got hooked on cigarettes after having to smoke for her role in Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974).
9. Turned down the role of Tracy Farrell in Robert Altman's A Wedding (1978). The role went to Pam Dawber.
10. Owned the film rights to Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993). Was to write and star in her own film adaptation of the book but the project fell through and she gave up the rights long before Gus Van Sant took over the film rights.
11. Studied at the renowned Actors Studio in New York during the early 1970 but after only a few classes, found the process too analytical and technical and left to return to her own instinctive and organic approach to acting.
12. A fan of Sean Connery, she was lured by Terry Gilliam into making Time Bandits (1981) under the assumption that she would be working with him. Gilliam called Duvall while she was completing work on Popeye (1980) to ask her to appear in the film. When she displayed reluctance, Gilliam, knowing her adoration of Connery, told her "Sean Connery is going to be in it", to which Duvall immediately replied, "I'll do it." As it turned out, they didn't share any scenes together. She later laughed this off, crediting Gilliam's "devilish" sense of humor.
13. Learned Italian to play Countess Gemini in The Portrait of a Lady (1996).
14. Guy Maddin's only choice for the role of Amelia Glahn in Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997).
15. Following the 1994 Northridge earthquake that damaged her Los Angeles home, she left California and since then has lived primarily in Blanco, Texas, where she remains fairly reclusive.
16. At Stanley Kubrick's insistence, she and Jack Nicholson performed 127 takes of the baseball bat scene in The Shining (1980), which broke a world-record for the most retakes of a single movie scene with spoken dialogue. Duvall said she learned more from working with Kubrick on that film than she did on all her previous films.
17. Robert Altman's second choice for the role of Sheila Shea in A Perfect Couple (1979). The role had been originally written for Sandy Dennis; however after Dennis left the project, it was offered to Duvall but as she had already begun production on The Shining (1980), she couldn't commit. The role went to Marta Heflin.
18. Based her characterization of "Olive Oyl" on a combination of Stan Laurel and Mae West.
19. Was in France attending the 1977 Cannes Film Festival when offered the role of Wendy Torrence in The Shining (1980).
20. Filmmaker Robert Altman directed her in seven of his films: Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville (1975), Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), 3 Women (1977), and Popeye (1980).