Every child is so different. Their experience growing up and their experience relating to the world has so much to do with their temperament, and their likes and their dislikes.

I like the excitement you get at touching another human being when you're acting with them and then having a little spark and not knowing what is going to happen in between you.

I like stories about people. I like things that are human and different. I want to be as engaged in my work as I am in reading a book. I want to be electrified by the films I do.

When my son first started to take the subway, my husband and I used to follow him to make sure he was all right, and then we had to stop following him and let him do it by himself.

You always absorb a lot from a great actor. What you want, as an actor, no matter where you are in your career, is a partner who's going to bring everything they have to the scene.

As an actor, all you have is what you know and what you see in other people. The more you know, and the more you've experienced, the more you're able to communicate to other people.

I went with Tom Ford to a bunch of events one year, and he's so wonderful and handsome and so much fun to be with; he made me look, like, 100 percent better in every single picture.

She's in a situation she tried to, that's what's complicated. She followed orders; she called off the raid. This is a dangerous situation. Somebody in DC police went ahead and started.

My mom worked as a psychiatric social worker. She was interested in people, and I guess I am, too. So we would talk about the people that we knew, and why they behaved the way they did.

We have to work for a living, but it is your life, so make sure you find something that you enjoy doing and people that you enjoy doing it with. Then, hopefully, you'll have a happy life.

I do Ashtanga yoga three times a week, and I run a couple of times a week, too. I really like yoga; I enjoy the actual doing of it, so it doesn't feel like the agony of the gym felt like to me.

Air pollution is terrible for our children. Every single scientist, every single doctor will tell you the same thing: Air pollution damages our children’s brains, their hearts, and their lungs.

This is someone who has a very stringent morality, and believes the system works, and has been deeply, deeply disappointed, and hurt, by it. You know, so she's in a very different place in life.

People talk about generating my own work, but I don't really know how to go about that. There are certainly some roles in the theater I'd like to play but I don't know if I'll ever get to do it.

If you're 50, you're never going to be 50 ever again, so enjoy being 50. If you sit through the year wishing you were younger, before you know it, it's going to be over, and you're going to be 51.

The idea behind makeup is to enhance whatever color or contours you have in your face. I'm a big believer in that. And don't use to much powder; powder is really aging. I've made that mistake myself.

There was a period of time in America where the advertising world actually went to the housewives of America and had them write jingles that would appeal to them. It was actually brilliant marketing.

My father was a military judge, and my mother was a psychiatric social worker. My brother and sister and I were moved around constantly, in and outside the U.S., living in Germany for much of our teens.

I think the thing about relationships is that you're always thinking "Oh, it's going to go bad." [...] But then, it's the same thing that all the silly magazines say, "Take time for yourselves. Go away."

I can only be in the sun for 15 minutes before burning. I have sunscreen on my face every day. If I'm walking on the sunny side of the street, I'll walk to the shady side. I'm too uncomfortable in the sun.

I can see how Americans misconstrue British reserve, and I can see how British people misconstrue American enthusiasm. I think I'm somewhere in between the two. Although I'm outgoing, I'm also very private.

I did find it particularly difficult to do Broadway. It was not my favourite way to perform. When I do theatre, I like it to be smaller. I like the audience to be closer; I like it to be less presentational.

I was somebody who was not athletic. I was highly imaginative; I loved to read, and I loved nothing more than being in a story... I didn't want to play ball; I wanted to imagine something and read something.

I read a lot growing up. It was kind of my comfort, you know; I loved it. I love story. I love narrative. I was academic. I wasn't particularly athletic. I didn't make the drill team. I didn't go out for sports.

I love clothes - I love shopping for clothes, I love wearing clothes, I love talking about clothes - but oddly, putting on the dress and walking around in front of people, that's the place where I'm most uncomfortable.

I think to be courageous, you have to be afraid. For me, it feels very courageous when I go skiing because I'm very, very afraid to ski. It's dangerous! I feel very scared. But when I'm acting, I don't feel very scared.

The funny thing about my films is that you can make little piles of them. You could make little piles of the movie that were family movies, you could make a little art movie pile, you could make a little action movie pile.

If you ask anybody about their life, usually the first thing they talk about is how their wife is doing, how their kids are, they don't usually say "My job, my job, my job". It's really true. It's usually about your family.

Travelling childhoods are a common theme among actors. Army kids, embassy kids, travelling salesmen, clergy. Thing is, you learn about behaviour, that different places are separated by behaviours which are culturally driven.

It's pretty boring, working by yourself. The scene happens in between the two of you, and then you don't know what it's going to be because it's a kind of combustion. So, you do take something from every actor you work with.

When I was seven, these kids in the alley behind our house in Omaha called me Freckleface Strawberry. I hated my freckles, and I hated that name. I thought it was humiliating in the way that only a seven-year-old could hate it.

It's hard to keep the romance going sometimes. Because you have a job. And you have children. And you have a house and a dog. And something leaks in the basement, and somebody has to take the dog to the vet... you're exhausted.

I knew from very early on that I wanted kids. I wasn't one of those women who goes, 'Well, if it happens, it happens.' I really wanted a family. Although I didn't actually have my first child until I was 37, I always felt I'd get there.

I always say about acting: the audience doesn't come to see you, they come to see themselves. So if you're able to give them an experience where they feel, 'Oh, my gosh, that's me, that's my story, they know!' then you've done your job.

My kids have always been allowed to have dessert. My husband thinks I'm too free and easy about that kind of stuff, but my kids will throw out a half-eaten ice cream cone if they've had enough, which I've never in my life been able to do.

When I was younger, I thought I had to shut myself off, work really hard to cry. I learned after a while that that's just not... You know, often in life, you cry when you're caught off-guard. That's where I need to be when I'm acting, too.

I was a bookworm, and very skinny with big, thick glasses. I never went on dates and guys were afraid of me because I was smart. So I got contact lenses, started to dress a little better and tried not to talk about Plato with boys. It worked!

Men aren't asked about age. Men aren't asked about their children. Not that these things aren't important, but I do feel like it becomes reductive when a woman's life becomes, 'Talk to me about your kids and how you feel about plastic surgery.'

I think people are always really surprised when they realise I'm not a very serious person and that I'm not tremendously serious about acting. I don't like to rehearse; I hate improv. Directors that don't like to talk, they're my favourite ones.

I don't consider myself very brave in any sense. I'm interested in this kind of behavior. My job is to try to make it realistic and emotionally resonant. That's the most challenging thing, to bring emotional resonance to what you do as an actor.

One of the things that I love about L'Oréal is that it's accessible and aspirational. Beauty doesn't have to be a mystery, and it can be available to everybody. But it's also about accessing what is most innately human, what we think is attractive.

I do remember when I was starting acting, going from one set to the next, with not much else going on in my life. And at the end of the day, you get back to your hotel room and just feel this awful loneliness, because the cameras have stopped rolling.

I think that one of the things that you do learn is that falling in love and being in love with someone is a rarity. That you don't fall in love as many times as you think you're going to. And then when you do, it's really special; it's really important.

At the Golden Globes, they put all the bigger stars in the front; the movie stars in the front, TV actors in the back. But even as a movie star, you can be outseated by a bigger star in any given year. It's kind of hilarious. You have to take it in stride.

Either you like a person or you don't like a person. I don't have to love somebody to work with them. I'm a professional person. But when you get the bonus of really liking someone and really connecting with them and really enjoying them, it's a fantastic thing.

You never have sex the way people do in the movies. You don't do it on the floor, you don't do it standing up, you don't always have all your clothes off, you don't happen to have on all the sexy lingerie. You know, if anybody ever ripped my clothes, I'd kill them.

I think it's always hard to find great roles, no matter what age you are. So I always say to people, 'You have to remember that Hollywood is in the business of making movies that they can sell tickets to; they're not in the business of finding great roles for actors.'

With actors, all our ages are out there for all to see - you can't hide anything, really. And it's kind of a relief. This is my age, this is what I look like without makeup on - who cares? That youth culture - that lying about your age - it's all denial of death anyway.

Every different social group that I encountered had its different set of rules, so you learn very quickly how to pick up the nuances and change yourself accordingly. When you are not from anywhere, you have to try to find what's universal. You are always trying to fit in.

I have a very, very normal life. I really do - with the exception of being very lucky and privileged. I have two children, a dog, and a husband. We live in New York, the kids go to school, and we're fortunate that we have flexible schedules. I like that. That's what I want.

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