I have a background in theater. At the time I read 'The Loved Ones' script, I was playing Catherine the Great of Russia onstage. Straight after that, I played Stella in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and Isabella in 'Measure for Measure.'

I was in Florida with Burt Stern, the photographer who shot Marilyn Monroe on the beach with a sweater, and we smoked a joint. The bathing suit kept coming off in the water, and I just ripped it off. I was very comfortable being naked

I've been reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, which is obviously very dated now but still relevant. It's so interesting to see how far we've come and how far we haven't come with all these myths that people put onto women.

That Ted Turner is a genius...He has taken what used to be a carnival side show and turned it into a gold mine. Yes - wrestling has become prime time for the masses. He's making these giant men into millionares with movie star status.

I think that I get different kinds of joy out of directing a film and acting, and it's sort of necessary to just be doing one and focusing on that. I'm in awe of anyone who tries to be an actor-director, so I couldn't really see that.

Kids dealing with these really adult-problems. I'm making big, generalized statements but our culture doesn't acknowledge these things. Sex does lead to pregnancy! Kids don't always have an outlet or someone they can talk to about it.

The way I know my father is not through media. The way I know my father is in number of different ways. It's through the people who knew him well, his friends, my family. It's also through his own words, because he wrote voluminously.

You think he's going to like you better, but then one day you look in the mirror and realize you've changed yourself - physically and emotionally - into a woman who's totally different from the one he was attracted to the first place.

From when I can remember, I wanted to be an actress. I am a die hard fan of dancing and would take my dad's clothes and my mom's clothes and dance in front of the mirror. I loved my dad's clothes, as they had a lot of glitter in them.

Coming from the theatre I have played some fabulous characters where I get to wear gowns and I get to be a princess or someone from the 1920s, or I get to wear showgirl costumes. I'm used to wearing a wardrobe that changes how I feel.

Tired of all her efforts at Tara, Scarlett wishes to escape too: "I do want to escape too! I'm so very tired of it all!. . . The South is dead, it's dead, the Yankees and the carpetbaggers have got it and there's nothing left for us."

And then the really awful thing is that at the end of the day after crying and experiencing things, then you look at what you've written and you're like, 'Hmm, there's half a page that's good here.' Then you throw out everything else.

My mum used to tell me when I was a kid that I had to go to bed at 7.30 P.M., and when I'd ask why, she'd say, 'Well, you do get a bit grumpy when you don't have routines'. Then I realised, when I was a bit older, that's actually true.

Anyone who wants to offer me as mushy, earthy, crunchy a role as they can, I will probably take it. In real life, I cry at a drop of a hat, and I'm a mom, and I'm pretty mushy! We all have so many colors as actors that we want to show.

I have always been a huge fan of reggae music. I remember going to see Bob Marley And The Wailers at the Hammersmith Odeon when I was 13. I went with my big sister, Cordelia, and it remains the most wonderful concert I've ever been to.

Every time you get the chance to work with somebody you admire and would like to collaborate with... it feels like the best opportunity that's ever come your way, whether that's in fringe theatre or a really big-budget Hollywood movie.

Like the Impressionists, I enjoy the effects of light, and especially natural light on the figure. If I could, I would take each viewer along to my favorite places along the seacoasts or in the mountains to the secret places of nature.

There are looks that I see on other people that I think would look horrible on me, but I think if somebody has the courage to be really daring and try something outlandish, then more power to them. Thats just encouraging and inspiring.

I've gone to prom multiple times, had fights with the principal, a relationship with my teacher. When people ask if I wish I had gone to high school, I tell them that I've acted all of that stuff out, and it just doesn't seem like fun.

If I was producing something, it wouldn't make sense to me to cast somebody because of who their father is because that doesn't put anyone in the seats in the theatre. I wouldn't go to a movie because that person's father is so and so.

Whenever you have to do a photo shoot with a woman, there is this weird competition. They need to prove something. They need to play games - maybe unconsciously - but women are so sensitive, and people call me more masculine sometimes.

Success for me will be where the body of work I've done afforded me the opportunity to be as good as I can be, and to explore myself and to see what I'm capable of. People like that share a willingness to be scared and to take chances.

I like men. I like the sound of their voices, the way they think. They're more sensitive than women. With a woman, everything is either this or that, black or white. But a man can see shades of gray. That's what I call being sensitive.

I noticed the drama majors on campus when I was at Notre Dame. They just seemed to be freer spirits than the rest of us. There was joy in their work; they were the only ones studying something whose work made them happy. I envied that.

We depend on the critics to give us a glimpse of what happened. Bernard Shaw championed Ibsen, who got the most terrible notices for his plays. Kenneth Tynan championed young writers, and as a result, the theatre has changed radically.

You know what I did? I turned down an offer to do 'Enemy of the People' with Steve McQueen. It doesn't matter that the film was never really released. A movie like that, successful or not, adds to your credits. It leads to other roles.

My teachers encouraged me to audition for some professional work during our summer vacation. I landed my first job. It was for the National Theatre Company's Mimika Pantomime troupe. I ended up touring with them for the next two years.

I can't say enough about how I'm against drugs. Be smart, think about it, look at what it does to people, look at how much you have to experience in life and be courageous enough to do everything you want to without that chemical help.

Challenges, when you're in a tumultuous situation, are an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to get closer to God, an opportunity to find and kind of reform yourself, and to figure out what really matters and what your priorities are.

It was a period when live TV was just starting and getting popular and they took it seriously too. Not so much like TV now. They did Hemingway and Faulkner - and they’re all wonderful artists and it just was very creative at that time.

I write my own stories. I like telling stories to little children. I think the good thing about stories is they carry you to another place which you've never been. And you feel like you're just enveloped by the book and the characters.

It is important to value the individual, to have good health, a loving family and good relationships, to have community ties, leisure pursuits. These are all part of our lives. It is important to keep all of our parts in working order.

The tattoo on my wrist has the letters 'ES,' which stands for 'elephant shoe.' It's something I used to say when I was younger instead of 'I love you' and it reminds me to remain childlike at times and to not take myself too seriously.

I don't know why people keep banging on about the '60s. I was very conventional because I came from a conventional family and I didn't go off with different people - I rather wish I had now, seeing all the fun everyone else was having.

When I make a movie, I just make the movie. I don't think about the success of it. If it becomes successful, that's an amazing treat. If it doesn't, you had a great time making it and you learned from it, and then you make a new thing.

So many things that you can ask children hopefully pique their interest and they can design and think for themselves. Having children draw and illustrate what they saw in their minds' eyes during the story is a tremendous teaching aid.

I did not see myself as a leading lady. I thought I was really funny-looking and I would never be the lead, and I certainly would never do film or television. I wanted to do theater. I wanted to be the grand dame of the American stage.

Being a creative person. It's so much more rewarding when you find things on your own, to live whatever the writers are writing or to display what the director is looking for. You are the thing that everybody uses to get the story out.

'My Fair Lady' and Eliza Doolittle will go on long after me, and someone else will step into it for their moment. That's what's so beautiful about revivals: There have been so many interpretations, and we're just giving it what we can.

People talk a lot about, 'You're a Disney princess! You're Cinderella!' and this and that. But for me, it's all about the fact that I worked with Cate Blanchett and was directed by Kenneth Branagh. That's the 'Cinderella' story for me.

We all have to start with ourselves. It is time to walk the talk. Take the journey of making very difficult decisions. Start removing things from your life that are not filling your cup and adding things that bring joy in to your life.

I used to enjoy doing silly walks on the street with my friends. Like, you know, you're walking, and then you break out in something completely ridiculous, to kind of spook out the person walking by you. I can't really do that anymore.

I'm sure my desire to perform came, in part, from being around politics as a kid. My dad had a big personality, and a lot of the people involved in Boston politics have big personalities, so there were all kinds of wacky people around.

The journey matters as much as the destination. By engaging in the moment on set, I've stopped rushing and now find pleasure in the collaborative process - the characters, the costumes - rather than worrying about the finished product.

I did a show called 'Wonderland' a few years back, and I was fortunate enough to spend a full-on two weeks - I'm talking 13-15 hours a day - with the doctors and patients at Bellevue in New York. That served me well for 'Durham County.

Playing Aung San Suu Kyi was a journey in itself. She represents many things for many people and for many reasons. Although I have played many important roles in my life, I can say that this role has been a journey of self-realisation.

I've done so many television pilots. I've done eleven I think and I've never had one get picked up. There was never one that I was a guest star on. It's just fascinating, but I don't think it would be fun to be recognized all the time.

When I first got to L.A., I was shocked at how business was done, and how people... it's like everything I was told not to fall for, I was surrounded by. And it was very difficult for me, because I just didn't like the industry at all.

So many little girls dream about their wedding day. But with actresses, sometimes it's the inverse, because we get to be the centre of attention, looked up and down, dressed up for premieres all the time. The pull isn't quite as great.

I grew up with my stepfather in Brighton, but I did spend a lot of time with my natural father, and I was loved by both, so I suppose the advantage of this was that I wasn't bound by one set of experiences; I always had an alternative.

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