~I'm strict about manners. I think that kids have a horrible time with other people if they have bad manners.... The one thing you've got to be prepared to do as a parent is not to be liked from time to time.~

I think people around you should feel like you're always approachable and always open. I mean, kindness - top of the list. And I like people who seem very grounded. That's a lovely quality in a leading player.

I wish writing was a talent that I had. I've tried. Unfortunately, I'm just not talented in the writing department. But, if I was, I would just write complicated roles for women because there's a lack of them.

It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fast train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure did on me.

I don't buy the tabloids, but you're surrounded by it all and people tell you things they've read. I'd be sitting on a train looking over someone's shoulder and thinking: That's familiar... oh my God, it's me.

It's a fantasy that we could have a president who could actually make choices based on what's right, rather than having to weigh the political fallout. But that's sort of what we're showing. And you can dream.

It's hard because I seek out strong female roles. I turn down a lot of stuff, not because it's not good, but because I don't want to play certain types of characters. I don't like to just play the pretty girl.

I'm 23, so I'm not done with my life. But acting, definitely, out of what I've done so far, makes me feel the most alive and is very invigorating and thrilling. So I figured I might as well try it for a while.

I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

I think there's a certain level of trust that I have with women. I've always been honest, even when I haven't had good times in my life or my movie bombed or I've had great success. I've owned up to all of it.

With theater, you have to really be able to listen and to respond to other people on stage. Youre all constantly on your toes. And then with film and television, you can get a second take and things like that.

I grew up in a household where we cooked all the time. My mom cooked all the time; my dad cooked. My grandmothers cooked. I have memories of sitting on the counter and snapping green beans with my grandmother.

I haven't watched anything I've been in since I've done it. I have never put in a movie at home that I've been in. Why? I don't know. I would feel like Norma Desmond. And I have a kid, so time is at a premium.

Famous people come up to me, but I don't know who they are because my sight is so bad. It's always at the pool of the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills when I don't have my lenses in and my glasses are in my room.

I can very much enjoy taking a year off. Whereas some people would feel crippled by that, I can feel enlarged by it. And then I also like to work nonstop, maybe for a year-and-a-half, and then take a year off.

I don't offer advice to actors only because I've seen actors become successful through ways that would never even occur to me or that wouldn't work for me. But this has worked for me: Never memorizing a scene.

I'm not a huge fan of scary movies, but I love doing them because your character arc gets condensed, and everything is elevated, and so you kind of have this amazing opportunity to go in many different places.

My marriage? Up to now everything's okay. But it's a real marriage - imperfect and very difficult. It's all about people evolving somewhat simultaneously through their lives. I think we've emotionally evolved.

We can no longer waste time and money. Every day, more than 2,000 girls in America, age 15-19, give birth - in the wealthiest, most educated nation in the world! Neither you nor I should accept this statistic.

It was an odd coincidence that my career took off the same decade as having babies. I often wished it had been different, that I had my big career bump in my thirties and my babies in my forties or vice versa.

The place you have to start to be any good at this, at acting, is with yourself. Everything is inside of you, all of it - the murderer, the great mother, the therapist, the husband. Everything is inside of us.

So much of Sue Sylvester, the angry woman, came from that part of my life, wanting to crush other people's dreams and judging others so harshly, which is always just a way of deflecting your own self-judgment.

I find it interesting that 16-year-olds are having plastic surgery. People in their 40s used to think, 'I'm aging, I have to do something about it.' Now children are deciding they don't like the way they look.

I always say leave things at the door. Whether it's at your audition or at your house, leave the problems of the day away. Keep persevering, stick to yourself. Don't do what other people ask, do what you want!

And now, I still really don't care that much but now I have music playing all the time at home, which is a first for me. Whatever. Everything from Ani DiFranco to Dave Matthews to Jack Johnson and Norah Jones.

To become a classical ballerina, you have to move to New York when you're 12 or 11 and that becomes your life. I just wanted to be good in my company in Charleston and I wanted it to always be part of my life.

Learning how to respond to and master the process of change - and even to excel at it - is a critical leadership skill for the twenty-first century. Constant, rapid change will be a fact of life for all of us.

I don't know if this is why everything has worked so well and I'm not sure I'd recommend this kind of thinking to anyone else, but I've always known I'd be successful in acting. I have certainly worked for it.

I'm not into 'Let's go out with one guy on a Monday and another guy on a Wednesday' - that's just not me. I'm a relationship kind of girl. I like a twosome. Some people get excited about being single. I don't.

Being on "SNL" was a goal that I had when I was younger. When I got fired, I just felt really mad and I felt really grossed out by the system and grossed out by myself and it just sort of knocked me on my ass.

Nowadays, performers who want to create their own material put it on the Internet. I never knew whether or not it would make an impression - and frankly, I didn't care that much about how it would be received.

It is unrealistic to expect an entire profession to be completely good. There are bound to be some individuals who are stressed, who are unkind, who are a bit rubbish at their job, who are in the wrong career.

If I need to cheer myself up, I will put on some fabulous '40s musical on video. But I'm very lucky; I seldom get depressed. Without question, I'm a 'glass half full' person. In fact, it's three-quarters full!

When I was pregnant, I wanted to take some time off from acting, but I still needed a creative outlet for myself. My first two books were created during my pregnancies and after giving birth to my first child.

'Snow White' is an old fairy tale, so obviously the idea of vanity and obsession with youth is long-standing. With today's science, people have become crazy with trying to move their face around. It's bizarre.

We're not doing brain surgery. We're not saving lives... Even if you're doing Shakespeare, it's still entertainment. We're just entertaining people. We're just doing the stuff that comes on in between the ads.

I just think that people take me a little more seriously as a brunette. I don't know if that's just because of a societal preconceived notion that all blondes are stupid, but it's a different kind of attitude.

Right now everyone is able to have a real voice and have it be nice and loud. Being loud is a really important thing right now. It's an amazing thing to watch. It's important because making noise makes change.

I do get approached occasionally, but not a ton. I'm unrecognizable because I'm coated in cat hair and sweat. And there's a sort of yeti quality to my presence... so I don't think that people can see the face.

I've been a big astrophysics nut since I was 12. I have always had a real soft spot for the bizarreness of quantum mechanics. But I gave up on being a scientist in high school - I'm just not that good at math.

My favorite thing to do in a new city is find new fast food. I seek it out. I'll tweet and ask people what their favorite local place is, and if I get four or five with the same answer, then I'll check it out.

My friend once sculpted me a bust of Admiral Ackbar from 'Star Wars.' He's my favourite character in the films after Han Solo. He's that goldfish-type alien in the white costume. 'It's a trap!' I'm a big geek.

I had originally done a production called 'The Resistance.' It was one of those underground guerilla things, very low budget. Then Starz and Ghost House ended up picking it up and funding it, and we reshot it.

I would be extremely stupid if I said that my looks had absolutely nothing to do with what I do, it [moviemaking] is a visual medium. I'm perfectly aware of that, the face and the body help. Of course they do.

For me, my favourite actresses are like Charlotte Rampling or Gena Rowlands... people who have always stepped outside of the restraints of a certain type of woman or story. I always like those movies the best.

I am always sort of delightedly surprised when someone recognizes me because as far as I'm concerned, I'm just going to work and getting paid to act, and that alone is fantastic; I forget people watch it, too.

I find it almost comforting to count calories, because it makes me conscious of what I'm eating. But on Super Bowl Sunday, I thought, 'Surrender to it. It's nacho time.' Then I ate nothing but Doritos all day.

I wouldn't tell you anything about anybody I cared about because it becomes entertainment for other people, and it sort of just cheapens everything in your life. I would never tell you if I was dating anybody.

I think people like to see the lives of artists that are legends. They always go through the dark periods and I think just as humans we like to see that and them coming out of it. I love those kinds of movies.

I've never been a fearful person. When I was growing up, I wanted to be an actress, a writer, and a musician and I never really processed that those are the three hardest jobs - I just never even processed it.

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