Acting is what happens on the way.

I try to become more humble and more myself with every year. There was a while when I got famous where I was so confused and my head was spinning.

I take the responsibility of choosing seriously because it becomes an indelible part of your body of work. Something has to sing to me.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

I have a hard time getting motivated to do something that seems like a career move. I've gotten into vague trouble with my agents for turning down work that I thought was exploitative.

I hate it when people use sex as a weapon against the people who are engaging in it. It's so hypocritical.

I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera.

I had a Christian upbringing - it was all about sin and guilt. I was very happy just kissing people. I was like the make-out queen - not even second base.

I assume that if people get to know me, they'll like me. If they don't, it's not my problem.

Being is like pretending.

Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action.

I want my life to effect the balance to the positive.

I always feel I can play a role - just give me the time to do the preparation and I'll be it.

I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.

I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.