A business like acting is 90% luck. You can be a star one minute and out of work the next

My own personal connection with God was not in a religious sense, so I wasn't really thinking in that way when I got the role and when I started doing it.

A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it

Because the role-model pressure becomes so insane, the personal and private takes a backseat to whatever it takes to maintain that fame and to maintain that lifestyle, and before you know it you're not a human being anymore.

My advice is to make acting your second career choice

I tried not to make God this big deal in Joan's life. She treats God like a friend: she's nice to him some days, and other days mean, and then cries when she needs help.

I think at the end of the day this movie is respecting what we as women go through as we grow up. The experiences, what we deal with, other women, things about images, things that we deal with as women. This movie addresses that in a very appropriate and sincere way.