Kim Novak Quotes

If you’re wanting glamorous or really beautiful or really s*xy, well then, I wasn’t really the one, but I could do all of that. You could just get really lost in that kind of image.

Well, I’m Czech, but Polish, Czech, no matter, it’s my name.

We only did probably two, three takes on every scene we did, at the most.

The work I did in Vertigo meant nothing if no one cared about the movie. Luckily, Vertigo had a revival and people had begun to recognize there was something special and it gained in reputation. But it just as well could have ended up rotting in film cans somewhere.

The thing I loved about Alfred Hitchcock is that he left a lot of open ends there, a lot of clues that didn’t really add up the way you think they would, and sometimes, not at all.

The script was always the most important thing to me and I loved the script. For one thing, I’ve always admired trees. I just worship them. Think what trees have witnessed, what history, such as living through the Civil War, yet they still survive.

The first time I was in his office was when they called me in to tell me they had changed my name. I had a feeling that if I’d gone along with the name they’d chosen, I’d never be seen again. I’d be swallowed up by that name, because it was a false name: Kit Marlowe.

So, Hitchcock wouldn’t say anything about my work in the movie but, on the other hand, he wouldn’t complain, either.

My security comes from my senses, my sensing the direction I should go and suddenly I felt out of tune, out of step with what other people wanted or what other people expected of me.

My first day at MGM they decided to bring this lion out, male, and it was not the best time for him to see me. All of a sudden he thought I was in heat and this lion went into the dressing room, which was just a trailer on the sound stage, and went crazy.

Just touching that old tree was truly moving to me because when you touch these trees, you have such a sense of the passage of time, of history. It’s like you’re touching the essence, the very substance of life.

It means nothing if the movie doesn’t get out there.

I was always opinionated.

I used Jimmy to give me what I needed to keep going and to know that I was on the right path with it. I thought I saw Jimmy’s soul all the time we worked. He never covered his soul and I never covered mine. We saw into each other’s souls, very definitely.

I tried so hard with movies like Vertigo and Middle of the Night and others. I felt those would show me that it’s only a matter of time before I’d find the right one to reach out and touch people.

I think it will be helpful to people because I know the expectations that are put on you as a sex symbol, and how Marilyn Monroe suffered and so on, and I was able to get free of that.

I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful.

I live way out in the country, so there’s not a lot of people around to remind me. And my friends don’t think of me as ‘Kim Novak’ anymore anyway. It’s like they forgot, too. And so it’s nice.

I knew Rita Hayworth only enough to know that she was just a tender, sensitive, beautiful human being. A lovely person. Very gentle. She would never stand up for her rights.

I had a lot of resentment for a while toward Kim Novak. But I don’t mind her anymore. She’s okay. We’ve become friends. I even asked her before this trip for some beauty tips.