Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Maureen O'Sullivan: Norma

Photos 

Quotes 

• Norma : How can you act when there's nothing inside to come out?

• Norma : It's a good thing that we had a talented daughter!

  Evan : I can only hope that she was mine! With you as her mother, her father could be anybody in Actor's Equity!

• Hannah : What triggered it?

  Evan : We were making a commercial down at the mayor's office. And there was this young, good looking salesman that your mother was throwing herself at him in a disgusting way. And when she found she was too old to seduce, that he was embarrassed by her...

  Norma : Liar! Liar!

  Evan : And at lunch she got drunker and drunker and, finally, she became Joan Collins!

• Norma : Sweetheart, I loved your script. It was so clever.

  Holly : Ma, you're my mother. Not everybody's gonna be such a sucker.

  Norma : I particularly liked the character of the mother. Just a boozy old flirt with a filthy mouth. I'm so proud.

• Norma : Hannah, can I tell everybody you're gonna play Desdemona?

  Hannah : Oh, Mom, it's only television.

  Norma : It's public television. To me, Shakespeare doesn't get any greater than Othello. You with some big black stud. I love it!

• Norma : [referencing Ibsen's "The Doll House"]  I played Nora, I hate to tell you what year, and it's very difficult to behave like Torvald's "little chipmunk" without making a perfect *ass* out of yourself.

• Norma : All my life I've put up with insults from this - nonperson. This - this haircut that passes for a man.

• Norma : Holly's game for anything. Holly takes after me.

  Hannah : True.

  Norma : I'd have been a great dope addict.

• Norma : I knew that he'd get up there and he'd flounder around with his expensive haircuts, hairdos, and clothes. He's all show! Now, how could you act when there's nothing inside to come out?

• Norma , Evan : [singing]  A simpering, whimpering child again, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered...