[The Rum Diary] is a prestigious movie and it's got a great, talented cast, so they wanted to make sure they had the right person for the role, but it was a torturous process. It was painful.

Strength and independence are always something that I'm drawn to in all my characters, no matter how different they are from one another.

I'm strong. I'm smart. I'm not a victim,' to my detriment.

A lot of nudity in my early movies was out of necessity. When I came out to Hollywood, I didn't know anybody, I didn't have any connections. I did what a lot of people have to do in the real world, and just work up from the bottom.

I'm keeping an open mind as always, because that's what you have to do.

Many states have laws against cousin marriage, which I think are ridiculous - people should be allowed to make that choice.

I was working with real artists [in the Rum Diary], and that's difficult to do and very rare, in this industry, ironically.