"I know that in order to be considered successful, you're supposed to do two or three movies a year. I only work once every year-and-a-half, sometimes two years. I have children to raise"
About this Quote
Her specific intent isn’t to romanticize scarcity or position herself as above ambition; it’s to redraw the timeline. “Once every year-and-a-half” isn’t laziness, it’s a schedule built around a life that exists off-camera. That matters because acting, especially for women, has long come with a background expectation of total availability: be thin, be game, be grateful, be on set. Tilly’s phrasing punctures that contract without turning it into a manifesto. She doesn’t argue; she states.
The subtext is bluntly modern: the labor of raising children counts, even if it doesn’t generate press. In a business that treats long gaps as career self-sabotage, she reframes them as deliberate. It’s also a subtle critique of the “always-on” treadmill culture beyond Hollywood, where the constant output isn’t just demanded, it’s moralized. Her sentence ends on the simplest justification possible, and that simplicity is the provocation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work-Life Balance |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Tilly, Meg. (2026, January 15). I know that in order to be considered successful, you're supposed to do two or three movies a year. I only work once every year-and-a-half, sometimes two years. I have children to raise. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-know-that-in-order-to-be-considered-successful-161543/
Chicago Style
Tilly, Meg. "I know that in order to be considered successful, you're supposed to do two or three movies a year. I only work once every year-and-a-half, sometimes two years. I have children to raise." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-know-that-in-order-to-be-considered-successful-161543/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I know that in order to be considered successful, you're supposed to do two or three movies a year. I only work once every year-and-a-half, sometimes two years. I have children to raise." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-know-that-in-order-to-be-considered-successful-161543/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2026.
