I love working and I love doing lots of things and a variety of things. It keeps your mind active... and you don't end up worrying about just the one thing. When I chew things over or analyze too much, that is when I can trip myself up.

You say something, things you would rather forget, and then they are out there. It makes me anxious and I don't know why people are interested in me anyway. If I had my way, I would rather exist in a little hole and not speak to anyone.

Persistence and determination are incredibly important. But sometimes you need to analyze the situation and understand when you're wrong. You need to be able to cop to being wrong, learn to change, and continue to grow as a human being.

I've never believed in dieting, but there are people out there who have problems. My advice would be don't ever stop yourself to a point where you start craving something, because you end up bingeing. I think the key word is moderation.

One needs to constantly read up, practice and work, irrespective of your profession. If I feel as an actor that I know everything, then how will I to grow? How will I improve? I'll be stuck in a rut, and eventually I'll grow complacent.

I was recently looking at what they can actually do to reduce consumption of petrol. It would be quite possible to build automobiles out of carbon fibre that would be just as strong, weigh 10 times less and consume 10 times less petrol.

Scarlett tells Mammy: "I'm too young to be a widow." She weeps to her mother: "My life is over. Nothing will ever happen to me anymore." Her mother comforts her: "It's only natural to want to look young and be young when you are young."

Different people's houses smell like different weird things. God forbid someone should come and nail down what my house smells like. It'd probably be a litter box... sweaty socks... and burnt bacon. That probably is what it smells like.

I'm friends with a lot of actresses, but my 'SNL' friends are my closest. The experience of working there is something of a battleground, a great one, but complicated. I think there's a deep connection for having survived that workplace.

My daughter's just going to be really hip! My goal is to be as eco-conscious as possible: There's so much out there for parents who want to do that. I plan to keep her eco-friendly as she gets older. I think we all sort of have to do it.

People gossip. People are insecure, so they talk about other people so that they won't be talked about. They point out flaws in other people to make them feel good about themselves. I think at any age or any social class, that's present.

I didn't even know how to judge 'Die Hard 1.' It's not anything I know how to judge. I'd never seen an action movie. I'd never seen a Sly Stallone movie or an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie or a Charles Bronson movie. And that is the truth.

I did get offers from Hollywood, but they were all scripts with monsters in them. If I had done them, I would have disappeared. I would have come back to France anyway, and I would have had to start all over again and lost a lot of time.

It's often women who are writing leading roles for women. Most of the stuff that comes my way is not actually about women. I'm just asked to be a supporting player in a story about a man, and I, frankly, was not interested in doing that.

I try to combine my work with my family, that's what I aspire to. I don't say that's the only thing. It's not all work and family, because otherwise you would be saying no to the many other things in life and there are many other things.

I stopped eating meat about six years ago, when I was working on the movie Selena. During the shoot, I had to hold a chicken for five hours-if you hold it and feel its little heart beating for hours, you just can't think about eating it.

I'm not on any social media. I know people who have met on Twitter and through Facebook. I had a friend, someone liked her photos on Instagram, and they started direct messaging each other and went out on a date! That's so foreign to me.

What we're supposed to do as actors is be able to portray real human beings and emotions. And if you grow up in this bubble of showbiz and you only know people who make movies, you don't really have an understanding of the world outside.

That's what happens in Hollywood. People are like, 'I want to hate you, because everyone else seems to love you.' But the reality is this: I'm a simple person who's not interested in attention and who just wants to go about her business.

One of the things that I miss about Canada is that even the strangers, you have an immediate rapport, there's just an understanding that we're all good people, let's be nice to each other. And Kiwis have that. I find the Kiwis have that.

There's nothing more frustrating than when fans use a nickname. That's like people you don't know using names from people that you're intimate with. Like if my mom has a nickname and a fan finds it out and starts using it, that's creepy.

I feel the less you project of yourself, the more you can be believable as a character. I also think it's just better for your own mental health. Then you can be a human being and change your mind, and nobody asks you questions about it!

I was young, not married, didn't have kids and I was like, "Why not just try for something now and see what happens while nothing's tying me down?" And, I've been fortunate, since I graduated, to work in the industry and keep on working.

When in doubt, always opt for going naturel rather than hiding your skin under foundation and such. Line your eyes with kohl and mascara, put on some bright lip gloss and pinch your cheeks a little bit to get them all flushed and bright!

I don't have one specific dream role: I'm an actor, so I want to play everything. In this business, they'll pigeonhole you in two seconds if you're great at the role you play. Everyone assumes that you're really just like that character.

My approach to wellbeing is to not be so critical and so hard on myself, and also to not think that I have to conform to other people's ideas of beauty, and to be okay with what made me feel good. I think it took me a while to get there.

I think people couldn't really put me in [one race]. I wasn't Mexican, I wasn't white, I wasn't black, I wasn't Asian... I wasn't anything, and I didn't really fit into anybody's group. My dad is Mexican, and my mom is French and Danish.

I think it's important to keep things private, and there are certain boundaries I feel very particular about drawing. It may seem fastidious, but my experience of talking to the press is that I need those boundaries to remain very clear.

I can understand going for Botox at 45-50, when you want to keep things in place. But I don't understand 25 year olds going for Botox or under the knife. You don't require it. Your skin is fresh, young. Why would you do that to yourself?

I know what my comfort zones are. But without a back-up, I will never step out of my comfort zone. I don't go bungee jumping; I won't jump from the third floor without a safety net. I don't do such things. That's not my personality type.

Regarding my attire, I choose whatever I feel is most flattering at the time. That can be jeans dressed up to a nice dinner or a dress at home for a casual night. In other words, thin days and chubby days are what determines what I wear.

How well I walk my talk, and not talk my talk, determines the quality of my engagement, of all my experience with what is quite personally my God. I'm my greatest teacher, and within me, I have the power to push myself deeper and higher.

Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.

I never understood who all those people are behind the actors! When you see them on the red carpet on TV, you go, 'Why does that person need such a large entourage?' And then you realize that every single person there has a role to play.

I remember when I did 'Mrityudand' there was this big hoo-ha, and people were asking me why I was doing an art movie, and I would just tell them that, 'You know, what's the big deal, it's a movie.' I'm so glad that's a thing of the past.

It fell into my lap. I grew up doing dance classes. And one day, a film production company contacted my dance school looking for background dancers. I wasn't looking for it. It just happened. And I found myself on set. And that was that.

I hardly knew anything when I first arrived. I had to learn how to act as I went along. After about a year I got a grip on what acting was all about and it started coming straight from my heart; I wasn't just saying the words any longer.

I have a mother who allowed me to take in anything and everything that needed food, a bath, or a forever home, which resulted in a home that was always filled with warmth and love regardless of any other struggles we were presented with.

You're making a fantasy. You're making something real out of a fantasy. And then it no longer exists. It's heartbreaking to leave behind. I was devastated after Waiting for Guffman. I had never gotten so close to people I've worked with.

I love music. I think music is a big inspiration; I listen to it a lot when I'm writing. I really love cinematic music. A lot of the time, I make playlists for my characters when I act. I also make playlists for the scripts that I write.

I barely slept during high school because I was too busy dancing and acting all the time. The plan was to go to my dream college that had one of the best performing arts programs, and then go to LA to follow my dream of being an actress.

I'm absolutely as vulnerable as the next person in terms of being swept up in aspirational Instagrams. You just have to know what is fantasy and what is real. It's always good to have a diverse feed in your life and in your social media.

If I've got a script, you think I'll go to Hollywood to get money? I was bored with the people around me, so I just created my own movie, my own character. I'm the story of my own movie, and you know what? My movie is going to be better.

I'm not in any rush to get anywhere. There's a pressure on actors to get somewhere before it's over. But everyone wants longevity, don't they? It's a career. Why be that flash-in-the-pan, taking every job out of worry it'll soon be over?

When I was a little kid, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about what I'd wish for if a magic fairy gave me three wishes. First, I wanted to be loved. Then, I wanted to be beautiful. And, finally, I'd wish for a million more wishes.

I remember passing through New York in college and thinking, Im going to come back here. The energy just made me think of Europe - everyone walking, seeing the delis and flowers outside. It just felt very familiar. I loved it right away.

I always look for roles that make me feel good about being a girl. I have to say that there are a lot of roles out there that make me feel really bad about being a girl. You can imagine what the things are and I shall not go into detail.

I've always loved the rush you get from watching a really scary movie, but I never watch them alone. It's fun to turn out the lights and scream and clutch someone's hand and spill the popcorn all over the place and hide under each other.

The image is never created by you. It's created by the media, by the people around you. In my real-life self, I would be without make up and in jeans and a T-shirt. But when I'm outside, I'm dressed up. It's not because I enjoy doing it.

I didn't get out of India till I was 15 years old, and I went to Malaysia with my father for an exhibition. And after that international visit, the next time I stepped on foreign shores was for the Miss Universe pageant at the age of 18.

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