“I know I worked hard and grew as an artist, and I’m proud of myself for that. But I always think I could have done better.” – Patricia Arquette
Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Arquette is receiving rave reviews for her chilling performance as Dee Dee Blanchard in Hulu’s The Act, including an Emmy Award nomination. She recently spoke to fellow actor Ben Stiller (who directed Arquette in Escape at Dannemora) for Interview magazine and delved into how she thinks of herself as an actress — and why she almost didn’t pursue acting.
While Arquette has an Oscar and Emmy to her name, she confesses that she isn’t one to rest on her accolades. She explains, “I do have a hard time patting myself on the back. I know I worked hard and grew as an artist, and I’m proud of myself for that. But I always think I could have done better.”
With that in mind, it’s easy to see why being the child of actor Lewis Arquette and coming from an acting family almost dissuaded her from pursuing a career in acting. She says, “I was raised by a struggling actor, so I never bought into the story that being an actor was this ‘party life,’ and that it was better than what everybody else did. I never really trusted success, because I’d never really seen an example of it being easy. I didn’t know if I wanted to be an actor or a midwife, but I knew I was more afraid of being an actor. I decided to give myself a year to fail every day at trying, because more than being an actor or being a midwife, I really wanted to be a brave person.”
