Nowadays I'd describe myself as earnest, terribly earnest. I'm the person who wants everybody in the room to feel important and happy.

Relationships take time and energy, and your job kind of sucks that all out of you. It takes an extra effort to stay present in a relationship when you are working so many hours.

I hope to be acting until I'm playing the role of Grandma, and I'd like to branch out in film - producing, directing, all of it. I'll sleep when no one wants to hire me!

Salma and I had run into each other once or twice at film festivals because I was doing the press for Real Women Have Curves at the same time she was doing the press for Frida. She had seen Real Women Have Curves, and when the idea of Ugly Betty came up, she thought of me. Her enthusiasm about the project was so infectious-she spoke of it with such expectation. Everyone that was involved was really excited about the project. I really wanted to be a part of it.

I think the body image thing, everybody can identify with that. In our culture there's just so much pressure and so much attention placed on the way we look. You just turn on the TV or flip open a magazine and there's people who don't look like any of us. I think this movie is like, finally, a celebration of reality and of our imperfections. We're not all a size 2 and we're not all a size 0, and you know what? That's OK, because some of us like to eat!

To me, the tragedy about this whole image-obsessed society is that young girls get so caught up in just achieving that they forget to realize that they have so much more to offer the world.

I was young not too long ago, and I know the last thing you want is someone preaching to you.