Happy Birthday: Mercedes Ruehl

Mercedes Ruehl

Born: February 28, 1948 in Queens, New York City, New York, USA

[accepting her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Fisher King (1991)] I went to New York to study acting the summer I was 21 and like thousands of actors before me and thousands of actors after me, I went through the usual scores of moonlighting jobs and the usual scores of rejection and the usual legions of prophets of doom who were always there and always at the ready to give you the up-to-minute odds against you ever making anything of yourself in this business. And at this moment, all of those doleful memories have suddenly transformed themselves into nothing more than the sort of charming and amusing anecdotes from my memoirs!

[on stage vs screen] Stage is harder, and it pays less, and it’s gruelling and I like it much better. Because on stage it’s the actor’s medium; film is the director’s medium and television is arguably the producer/writer’s medium. But on stage, you get out there, you’re creating a character, nobody can pull you off, nobody can edit you and you can get deeply into a character and dwell there.

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