Quotes

I knew what was art and what was shit. But sometimes the shit was more interesting.

I'm thrilled to be a cult queen. Cult movie fans are good people. It isn't fair to denigrate them for having no taste or for liking weird films because they're twisted. Actually, the fans have better taste than the general audience. They like movies for very special reasons. And they're immensely loyal and understanding.

[on Andy Warhol] I was interested in art, and he was an artist. I did not think of it as acting. They had just started doing what's now called "performance art",­ then they were called "happenings". I thought of it in that way. I was an object that was being used, not an actress giving a performance. He went for that. That's why everybody thinks of all of us that were in the films as being freaks.

It's great that the fans think I'm sexy. But I'm not a traditional sex symbol by any means. I don't have big boobs, an hourglass figure and bubbly blonde hair. In fact, I hardly have any boobs at all.

Once upon a time, I thought I would become a star. It took me six months to realize that wasn't going to happen. Eventually, I knew that I would never become a star -- but I would make a lot of films and I would earn little bits of money here and there, which would support me.

I don't know what "respectable" means anymore. I've always been used in odd roles.

[on being cast in oddball roles] I don't seek out these roles, they're given to me. I would love to play Lassie's mom, and I'd be good at it. They [filmmakers] see me as a weirdo. I go to an audition and the people vying for my part are tough guys, gigantic fat women, or extremely ugly people. The director hands me a whip... so stupid! They say, "Now Mary! We want this character to be really, really bad! Be really, really bad!". No one is bad like I am.

[on Andy Warhol being an "evil opportunist"] No! He's not an evil opportunist! What's an evil opportunist? There's an opportunist, and there are people who think opportunism is evil. That's their problem! He did what he did and took what he took! He was very fair to me and very fair to a lot of people. He wasn't some ringleader abusing people. I liked him... I still like him.

[on her role in Chelsea Girls (1966)] Of all the girls at Andy Warhol's Factory, I was the butch one. [Warhol] put in his Screen Test and I spent my nights at Max's Kansas City... I was the strong girl at the Factory.

With most of the movies, they asked for me specifically. A lot of the movie auditions I did, I never got. But the TV stuff I would get, because they needed certain types and I just started filling a niche. Strong and domineering, or lesbian, whatever. But TV then was nothing like TV now, which is just incredibly subtle and very well-written and just amazing. TV was really deadly boring back then. Now you do movies to get your TV series.

It's not that I am happy not acting as much. It's that I don't have to act. I mean, if a role comes my way that I'm really interested in, I'll try it. But I've done enough movies, I think. I've done a bizarre range of movies. Maybe I haven't done 2,000 movies, and maybe I haven't become a star, but at least my movies are different. Plus, to do movies, you have to be young and beautiful. Not that I'm not beautiful, but I certainly wouldn't say I'm young. Now I'm beautiful and cranky.

I am not a brilliant actress but I'm entertaining. This is why I've become a cult queen.