When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers I kind of wanted to be a vampire.

I don't need any crutches in order to concentrate. As a child I learned that you must be ready because I'd be yelled at more than other people and it would always be my fault. I learned that to be professional is your number-one priority. The art comes second. You learn that, in order to give your best performance, you have to be a good technician, which means never allowing negative influences affect your performance.

If you have enough people sitting around telling you you're wonderful, then you start believing you're fabulous, then someone tells you you stink and you believe that too!

I wanted to educate myself about the world and I wanted to know what was happening to people in other countries. I feel now I have only just begun.

I thought I'd become a funeral director when I wasn't going to be an actor. I thought I would be good at helping some people with the grieving process and with trying to get them to talk about and understand who this person was.

When I was little, like Maleficent, I was told that I was different - and I felt out of place, and too loud, too full of fire, never good at sitting still, never good at fitting in. And then one day I realized something, something I hope you all realize. Different is good.

It doesn't take courage to drink too much and be wild or jump around. That doesn't take any kind of boldness, just riding a motorcycle or whatever the idea of being tough is. Tough is having four kids. Tough is committing to life and being disciplined.