A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten.
The character I play in Star Quality says acting is the be-all and end-all of her life. I'm not like that. I do enjoy working and I give every job my best shot but I never feel, What on Earth am I going to do now?
It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.
What's really interesting about that is that a lot of these words that were incendiary in their time now seem almost harmless and laughable, because they have this archaic quality.
If I had one quality that really ruined me and at the same time helped me, it was the fact that I never stopped looking, and by that time I was really working at it.
Tolstoy may not be showing that much of Russia at that time even. It's hard to tell. You tend to associate the quality of the period with what's lasted - what's still good. And that quality becomes the whole period.
Ruby in Paradise and the intensity and quality that I was able to experience on Smoke were equally as important to me as working on this movie every day for three-and-a-half months.
