I've sort of heard that 'it' girl thing, but not really. Hearing it from a few people doesn't solidify it in my mind and I wouldn't know how to solidify that title. It's so elusive and what does it mean, I don't know?

The first thing I learned about weapons is respect, and that carries into movies as well. If you're on set and you're dealing with weapons, live or not, you respect the weapon; you know how to handle it appropriately.

There's something about the darkness that I find unavoidably intoxicating. The knowledge that other people are sleeping and, therefore, unavailable to ruin my solitude, makes me more peaceful than I am during the day.

I've definitely had obstacles in my career - my whole entire career - to stay a certain weight, to get smaller than I have been, but I look at my family, I look at where I come from and that's not really in our genes.

The more I read and watched about the meat industry, the more determined I became to keep meat out of my diet. The things I saw in slaughterhouse exposes made me feel sick and I refused to just ignore what I now knew.

Lupe Velez was way before me; Dolores Del Rio was way before me, so I had no one. So the only one I could think of that I identified with was this gorgeous creature named Elizabeth Taylor, so she became my role model.

I put a lot of pressure on myself early in my life, like, "You have to be perfect; you can't do anything." You basically can't show any emotion and speak up. And then I realized that I have to live my life for myself.

A trustworthy marriage has weathered temptation and anger and jealousy, resentment, self-righteousness and a little bit of selfishness. When you get over and get through that, then maybe you can see the light to love.

There's always been a religious strain in me. I can't get rid of it. I don't want to get rid of it. I'm not involved in a church, but I understand that impulse to believe in something that's never going to betray you.

I think sometimes we put too much of a gravity on what it is that we do... I just think you go out into the world, and if the door is open, pursue with excellence whatever it is that you feel you are called to pursue.

My mom always told me if I love what I'm doing, and I'm having fun, then just continue to do it. But if it's not fun for me anymore, and I'm miserable, then I'm going to go back to Texas and quit it all, to be honest.

As women, we are constantly told that we need to compare ourselves to a girl in school, to our co-­workers, to the images in a magazine. How is the world going to advance if we're always comparing ourselves to others?

I feel like a turtleneck dress that's long-sleeved and covers your entire body but is tight fitting is so much sexier than boobs spilling out, you know? So I guess I'm more into being classy sexy versus apparent sexy.

When I started acting, my parents gave me three rules: I had to stay good in school, stay the kid they always knew I was, and I had to have fun. If I wasn't doing those three things, then I couldn't do acting anymore.

I love 'Shameless' as a fan. But I love lots of television. And as an ensemble, I have never seen a group of people put on screen what 'Shameless' - the 'Shameless' cast as an ensemble and as individuals - in decades.

No matter how many frustrations come along, or how many problems arise, I never lose the feeling of how lucky I am. I'm so pleased to be doing a job that makes me laugh every day. I'm aware that it's a huge privilege.

I can go completely berserk with the makeup, depending on the event. I'm currently in this very mod stage. I wear false lashes and color on my eyelids. I'm really liking shiny eyelids in copper, rose, gold, or silver.

I have walked away from friendships when I've realized that someone smiles to someone's face and talks about them the minute they walk out of a room. I have no room in my life for that kind of negative energy anymore.

You can get a bit bored of finding out about yourself. I know nothing about politics, for instance. There's nothing that's stopped me picking up a newspaper in the past, and it's something I really should start to do.

I love pushing my boundaries and seeing how far I can go without, you know, dying or injuring myself too badly. On set I was like, 'Give me some stunts! Give me whatever you want. Throw it at me. I want to do it all.'

Hollywood is crazy because if you're working, you're constantly working. There's all sorts of scheduling and stuff, and maybe you have a day off, but you don't have the whole day. You've got a photo shoot or whatever.

When children do not have three square meals a day, a proper education, and at least one adult who they know loves and is committed to them, it's very unlikely they will grow up to be productive citizens of the world.

I hid the fact that I had an aneurysm for a very long time. I was embarrassed, and I just felt like no one needed to know because it made me look weak. Who would of thought someone my age, at 23, had a brain aneurysm?

I'm at the transition place myself, still playing high school girls but moving to a stage when I'm playing older roles and going to the places of stillness and wisdom and knowledge and weight. It's exciting and scary.

The whole MS stuff put the kibosh on my career. And I sort of let it go. I even have a friend who went to CBS and said, 'I want Teri Garr to be in this series,' and the head of the network said, 'Oh no, she's got MS.'

I'm the breadwinner. I kill the spiders. Actually I don't kill them. I put them in a plastic bag and take them outside. I take out the trash cans. I change the light bulbs. I lug the 50 lbs. suitcases down the stairs.

Thomas Jefferson—another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in me. This was my problem in a nutshell. To get some play in Charlottesville, you had to be either a Martha Jefferson or a Sally Hemings.

The New York Post quoted Senator Hillary Clinton saying that she would never run for President, declaring "That is not something I'm going to be doing. "Which in Clinton talk means "I will be President in three years.

I've realized that I'm more important than food is. I love a big slice of pizza, but I love myself more. Being thin is about changing the way you think about yourself. It's about saying that you deserve to be healthy.

I think that at 21, I still look like I'm 17 years old, so I feel like I'm going to be playing teenagers for a while, and that's a very relatable stage in a teenage life for a female - that kind of rambunctious stage.

Society makes suicide so romantic. I mean, you watch these TV movies about teen suicide and you want to jump in front of a bus. Because your biggest fantasy is your own funeral. No one will admit to it, but it's true.

I don't go to parties even when I'm invited. I've always been an 80-year-old woman inside. I remember going to my first school dance petrified. I just wanted to leave. Like, This is cool, but I'm ready to go home now.

I had talked to my agent a lot over the years about not being interested in stereotypical "black films" [because] I didn't like the way they were representing black people over and over and over again in the same way.

The blessing of having your first project be something as fantastic as 'Girls' is that it gave me room to be selective because I didn't feel pressure to do other things. The curse is that my standards were really high.

My relationship with God is what gives me a moral compass on what decisions to make and that stuff. I'm thankful that I have the people around me that I do, and they remind me each day of who I am and what I stand for.

I really enjoy acting, and whether it's TV or films, I feel lucky to be doing it at all. In the end, I'd love to do films, but I'm not going to work just to do work. I only want to do something that I feel right about.

Always remember your kid's name. Always remember where you put your kid. Don't let your kid drive until their feet can reach the pedals. Use the right size diapers... for yourself. And, when in doubt, make funny faces.

That's the problem with bacterial meningitis: it progresses really fast. You think you have the flu, and they say within 15 hours it's severely deadly - for sure within the first 24 hours - but even the first 15 hours.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I'm very, very grateful; it's a fun job. It's a luxury.

You can't stop the aging process. There's only so much oil you can put on your body. I've always just tried to go with my age. If the part requires somebody a little younger or older, I can probably get away with that.

My sexuality is something I'm completely comfortable with and open about. There's a lot of prejudice toward us but the more people talk about it, the less of a big deal it will be. And that will be better for everyone.

The experience of having a child does crack you wide open. I felt like I suddenly had to rebuild the skin that I'd grown over the years before having a child. Perhaps that might be quite interesting in terms of acting.

I went to Brunel University and very much wanted to go on to do a PhD in management, but then my acting career started to take off. In those days when you switched on the box there were hardly any brown or black faces.

It's exciting to look back at the work that I've done and not have a single regret about a job I've taken. I feel really proud of every film I've been a part of. Big or small role, I feel like it was the right choices.

It's an incredible thing when you are creating something in a moment with the other people on stage and with an audience, and you are all experiencing it together as it exists in that one night. It's a magical feeling.

My life has definitely changed since 'Modern Family.' The show has made me more responsible, I really want to be a good role model for all kids so I have to think about what I say and do and how it looks to other kids!

I want to play a role of a 24-year-old woman, not 17-year-old girls. So I have picked a couple of films like 'Butter' to show that. And it's perfectly fine not to do anything for a year if I don't find the right thing.

I honestly don't have a lot of friends that are actors. Most of my friends I've known since sixth grade and are out of the industry. It gives me a sense of reality rather than surrounding myself with a bunch of actors.

There's the idea that gaming is a closed door and that men are holding access to who gets in or out, and you have to prove - if you're female - that you're a real gamer. I think the younger generation, they don't care.

I'd never done a sitcom until the 'Michael J. Fox Show.' I'd never even guest starred in one until then. So it was definitely a learning curve, which is what I wanted. I wanted to do something new, to challenge myself.

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