In spite of being professionally gregarious, in my nonpaid hours I'm a bit of a hermit. After being around a crew of fifty people for twelve hours a day on a film set, I really like my alone time, and as always, I abhor small talk.

You know, my mom, who inspired me to be a novelist, I remember her reading 'The Agony and the Ecstasy,' about Michelangelo, and saying, 'No mother would want that for her child, no matter how great the artist.' I have my share of demons, but I am a gregarious sort.

The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.

I'm quite gregarious. But when it comes to relationships, I mean, I'm no good at it. I suck at it. And people say I'm way too hard on myself, but I always feel like somebody else is going to say it if I don't. Why not just beat them to the punch so it doesn't hurt so much?

People are really surprised when they meet me that I'm a recluse. People think I'm very gregarious and outgoing - and I am - I'm thinking about writing a book about it called 'The Gregarious Recluse.' How the more that you put me out there in front of audiences, the more that when I have down time I have to disappear.

I was an introverted kid; I liked my time alone. And the rest of my family is pretty extroverted, so I felt like a bit of an oddball. They're very gregarious and charming and charismatic people. I always felt like I was struggling as a young person. I think everyone was very surprised to hear that I wanted to be an actor.

I don't ever think of myself as coming from a particular class because my father was working class but made his living as a newspaper foreign correspondent - someone of no fixed abode, as he used to say - who was as comfortable dining with the Mountbattens in India as he was having a pint with the boys. He was very gregarious.

I am far more of a loner than people would imagine. But I am the most gregarious and socially interactive loner you ever met. The thing is, I am fascinated by people's stories and I'm very talkative and can't ever say no to anything or anyone, so I tend to over-socialize, to give away too much of my time to the many people I adore.

The last time I saw Ted Kennedy was a generation after my first meeting, at the Senate subway below the Capitol on Obama's Inauguration Day. He was his usual gregarious and gracious self - with beaming smile and booming voice wishing my husband and me good luck with our pregnancy and expressing his excitement about the new president.

I don't know how I got a great husband. I mean, God just blessed me with that one. Because - trust me - before him, I was not making good choices. So I was just absolutely blessed. I just prayed for that man He's my secret weapon because he's so gregarious, and he's so filled with joy. Me? I can sometimes be more cynical, and I'm very shy.

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