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I'm thinking about anything and everything. I'm making stuff up in my head, I'm using sense memory. Sometimes when it doesn't come and you've got no choice because you're getting paid to do it, you grasp at straws. It's always easy now with my kids. I just create some "what-ifs" in my head, something horrible that would devastate me as a mother.
I really, really like interior design. I grew up in a really old house outside of Philly that was built in 1821. My mom is really into antiques, and my dad is very mid-century. They're not together anymore, so in the middle of growing up, I, all of the sudden, had two houses that were very different but really well done in each of their own ways.
It gets better. It gets so much easier to be in your skin no matter what size that skin is. If you do something that you're good at and that makes you happy, that's the best outlet that I could ever suggest to anybody....if you are able to just enjoy who you are, and if you can learn to love who you are, then you'll just be a much happier person.
I've pretty much grown up on set, and my favorite part about it is being able to actually see how movies are made. I knew when I was about 14 that I wanted to be a director and that I wanted to go to NYU for film school. It kind of feels like it's been a long time coming.It's a relief to actually be in, because the college process is so hyped-up.
Well, the first thing we do is take our brain out and put it in a drawer. Stick it somewhere and let it tantrum until it wears itself out. You may still hear the brain and all the shitty things it is saying to you, but it will be muffled, and just the fact that it is not in your head anymore will make things seem clearer. And then you just do it.
I made my performance debut in New York City downtown on the Lower East Side in college doing awkward performance art as a go-go dancer at Lady Starlight's Party. And I never thought that my love for mediocre performance art and bad mime would ever come to use in my career as an actor. But my fantasies came true and I got to play Maureen in Rent.
I think where I've instinctively found myself is that I am somewhat guarded in my public life. Being interviewed or being photographed or just in public attention, I have a certain reserve. But when I'm working I feel like I'm very open. At least I like to believe that I feel like nothing is held back when I'm in front of a camera. That's my job.
I was asked to lose weight by a network for a TV pilot. The conversation happens because you get a job, and your agent or manager calls, and they say, 'They are so excited about you. They just think there is no one better for this part, and they want you to look and feel your best. They really feel that that could include losing 15 or 20 pounds.'
What I wrote all the time when I was a kid - I don't want to call it 'poetry,' because it wasn't poetry. I was not that kind of a writer. I was a rhymer. I was a fan of Dorothy Parker's, so maybe I wrote poetry to that extent, but my main focus was the humor of it, and word construction, and the slant. Your words, it's a very powerful experience.
I was pretty much a mess out of primary school. I really experienced a lot more of that stuff from the ages of seven to twelve, where there was a really popular girl at my school, and I was obsessed with her, like you'd go to jail for that stuff today. I'm so embarrassed to say this, but I was in tears one day, because I couldn't sit next to her.
You have to let kids live their own lives and make their mistakes, but it is difficult now because there are so many things in their lives which weren't in mine - I never had Facebook. And some of the things I see now I'm appalled by. So I'm as nosey about my daughter's life as I can be. I tell her, 'I'm all over you, whether you like it or not.'
If I hadn't been told I was garbage, I wouldn't have learned how to show people I'm talented. And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn't have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn't tried to break me down, I wouldn't know that I'm unbreakable.
During the era when women were burning their bras - which, by the way, they never actually did - but when women were first becoming liberated, I was 23. And I met a woman who asked, 'Don't you feel bad because you're sort of acting like the stupid airhead blonde?' And I totally surprised myself. I said, 'Liberation can also come from the inside.'
I always step on the plane with my right foot and touch the outside of the plane with my left hand. Sometimes you know there's someone standing there to welcome you to the plane and I have to kind of get them to move a little bit so I can put my hand on the outside of the plane. It's not a natural thing to be up in the sky in a little metal tube.
When I first got to L.A., I was stretching $20 a week, waiting tables, and I did that for about six months. I didn't mind it at all, I was really happy for that experience, but it made me really get aggressive about what I want. I've been doing this since I was eight, and never considered doing anything else, so I really had to kick it into gear.
People are beginning to realize that self-knowledge is not an end in itself. It's for the purpose of better relationships, so that we can give to our community. You can give from overflow. It's very hard to give from emptiness. . . . People who avoid self-knowledge cause a great deal of pain to themselves as well as to their families and friends.
I like the idea of doing a little movie every week. When you do a movie, you don't know when it's going to come out. In a year, you forget about it. I forget stories that happened on set. I forget who I worked with. I forget my lines, my characters' names. This is so fresh. We make it, and it's on TV. It feels more like a living, breathing thing.
There is a secret, I think. When you are front of a camera there is something that happens. Some relationship, some movement, some strange kind of suspension. That's where you find the layer in yourself that is duplicated in everyone. And when you get it right, if you can imagine all the hearts beating in one beat, it's like that. It's beautiful.
The thing that amazes me about getting fired is that nobody ever has anything insightful to say about it. They always say the same thing. They always say, 'Everything happens for a reason.' As lame as that sounds, I guess it’s better to hear it out loud. Because when you hear it in your own head, it sounds like, 'Anything can happen with a razor.
There's a lot of things that are good in Scientology, because I wouldn't have been in it. And that's the thing: a lot of people trivialize this thing, like, 'Oh, it's Xenu, and it's a volcano, and it's jumping on couches and acting crazy.' These people are victims. We've been victimized. We believed in something because it starts out very normal.
A lot of people's lives are built around a healthy lifestyle. I take really good care with what I eat, and exercise obviously has become part of your lifestyle, going to the gym, meeting with your trainer, going to yoga and all those things. As an actor, that's part of your job; it's part of our responsibility to take care of ourselves, in a way.
People think the film industry is going to corrupt me, but I feel like it's kept me more innocent, in a way. I wasn't really home when my friends were trying pot for the first time. I was always around adults who wouldn't smoke or curse or do anything like that around me. I don't do things that are dangerous to myself. I don't want to hurt myself
I think it's dangerous to look at every Muslim woman the same and to assume that every experience within the religion is the same, meaning that there are going to be strong and assertive women that are Muslim. There's going to be a more passive woman who just so happens to be a Muslim. There may be a funny, big-personality woman and she's Muslim.
I think I'm definitely more open. You know the thing is I wouldn't have said I was closed before, but like, it's the kind of thing that you don't even think of other options. I've been dating black men for really, for like, I don't know, 10 years. You know, I haven't really dated outside of that. Now I think I'm probably am more open to the idea.
It felt like I'd been playing second-string football for a long time, when, suddenly, I was playing in the Super Bowl. Even when 'Basic Instinct' was a hit, I still felt like I was running with that ball toward the end zone. It took awhile for me to realize that I was already in the end zone with the ball down and the crowd screaming on its feet.
When women start to bond over their sexuality, it's very similar to the way that men bond over their sexuality in sports. Men bond over their sexual prowess - their strength, their agility, their power. Women bond over their undulation, their curves, their sensuality - things that are innately feminine. Once you do that, there is no turning back.
Guinevere and Arthur's story is so about the passion. It's about the sexual attraction between them. You can't have that story and show that sexual attraction with them kissing, and then shut the door. It just doesn't work. It's such an important part of their relationship and what happens in Camelot later on. It's who they are and how they bond.
There have been moments when I was on a modeling job, and it was the most fantastic thing in the world. And there have been moments where I've realized, 'Okay, I'm ten years old, and I've spent the past six hours outside in the rain.' It taught me how to be specific about what kinds of projects I wanted to do and what kind of work I wanted to do.
When I was 12 or 13, I started to watch films and understand more about the craft and that helped me to develop. But it also felt like a game, because it was fun. I mean, all of us do it when we're kids to a degree - play acting. But then I came to realise that it's a lovely way to express yourself. So, my passion for it developed as I got older.
Not to get too deep, but I think one of the reasons we embrace superheroes and this world is that these are just normal people that have incredible powers that are relatable in some ways - in that we don't have great super powers, but there's strength within us that we can utilize in our lives. Ultimately, they're just normal people with problems.
I do definitely get boxed into this #BlackGirlMagic social activist category. But it makes me think, "Well, maybe people are able to start thinking about that concept earlier and will hopefully be inspired to delve deeper into it and research it more." I think that's just how the media works. It's just very good at compartmentalizing human beings.
I get a stack of scripts, like, once a month, and most of the time, you find these placeholder girls that are there to provide a bounce for the male character. So we know he's funny because she's serious and she's mad at him. We know he's strong because she needs saving. So really, her job is to validate this personality trait of our hero or male.
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Any scene that involves stripping off is hell. You just know it's going to take a day or more to get it right. It never gets any better and it's always uncomfortable, and all you can do is grin and bare it. I just pray it's never gratuitous and that it doesn't look so fake that all you hear in the audience is, 'Well, that's not really her, is it?'
I love my job. It's such a privilege to be able to play such complicated characters. Growing up, I wanted to be a billion different things. I realized in order for that to happen, I don't have to be them all because the characters I want to play require such research and such a transformation to make that work - that's something that I love doing.
I'm a very positive person, that's something that's like my character Savannah. She's very positive in everything that she does and I'm the same way in real life. If I feel like someone's trying to bring me down, I just walk away from it. I just ignore it because sometimes when that happens you can get so involved that it does bring down your day.
Tom Hanks was really great [the 'Burbs']. The director, Joe Dante, was wonderful. We filmed it here during the summer, every day at Universal. Even the food was good - I mean it was junk but it was really good. The whole thing was like some ideal summer-school experience. It may not have been the best movie ever, but it was certainly the most fun.
People come up to me at conventions and say, 'I was such an outcast, I felt like such a geek, and when I saw you, you made me feel like such a normal person.' It's my favorite thing to hear, because that's how I felt when I was a kid. If Goth would've been around, I would've definitely been Goth. But there wasn't such a thing, so I was just weird.
I think I will always feel a special relationship with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, because for me it was something very, very special. It was a modern opera, and to play the heroine in a film that became such a success at a young age, and learning from him when I was so young and impressionable - really it was one of my most important experiences.
When entertaining, it's great to wow your guests with an outstanding recipe, but it's also very important to design a menu that's not too demanding of yourself, otherwise everybody will have fun but you. A great appetizer or simpler dish is a good way to work a menu that's delicious but does not impose too much effort or time spent in the kitchen.
I went to NYU for acting, for six years. I thought acting was the easy way out or in because I didn't put in enough effort in school, being a crazy kid in college. But, I was good at it, so that was the other side of it. I would love to direct. What I've learned from being on set is more how to deal with actors than even the visual part of it all.
It's the difference between someone who loves you more than anything in the world giving you criticism and getting it from some bitter stranger on the Internet. What my dad said to me was the kind of criticism where I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm on the wrong track." I'm so grateful to him for doing that. He was such a no-nonsense guy in that sense.
Fifty is a big corner to turn. It used to mean being put out to pasture, but it's the opposite with me. I feel more vibrant; I'm more active than I've ever been. The F-word really is freedom. It's the freedom to have dropped the rock-the rock of addiction, of family, of comparisons with other people. It's being fit and focused and kind of furious.
I've had days here and there where I would get discouraged because I wasn't a big star, but I've made a living ever since I was 27. Not a great living, but enough for me. I think actually being able to pay my rent and eat and perform is enough, and I did that for many years. Then I had some good years in there, too, where I made pretty good money.
I'm interested in acting roles that I want to do, that are meaningful to me in some way. I think, because my kids are still pretty young, if something is meaningful and it's a good little part that I could do or feel that I can have fun with, then I'm interested in it. I'd like to be able to do a TV show or something and really have a voice in it.
It's obvious to say you can't please everybody and there are always going to be people who are going to say, I just don't like you. There's nothing I can do about that. I'm aware, probably much more aware than my harshest critic, of what my own problems are with my acting ability. I'm very, very critical of myself, and I don't ever want to not be.
I like how people will post pictures of me with other women that I adore, hugging on red carpets, and say, 'See?' Are we so uncomfortable with love between two people of the same gender that we immediately label it as sexual? But I've never been bothered by the lesbian rumor. There's nothing offensive about it, so there's no reason to be offended.
I think there are great roles for women in television because there is time to allow those characters to evolve. Even if you're the wife or the girlfriend or whatever it is that we women are, playing those things on TV, they are much more drawn out and there are greater arcs for the role. The roles are more integral to the complexity of the story.
I think that popular culture takes a long time to catch up to what's actually happening in the world. Women have had to take care of themselves for quite a while. Actually, not had to take of themselves, but have wanted to take care of themselves, so I think it's a big transition that our country and our society has been going through a long time.
The United Nations four or five years ago put out a study that said the meat industry, meat-eating, growing meat for food is the No. 1 killer of our planet - not No. 2 or No. 3: No 1. You know what’s No. 2? Transportation. Everyone thinks that No. 1 is transportation, and goes out and buys a hybrid car. Screw the hybrid cars. Don’t eat hamburgers.