[Working with Meryl Streep] I just felt like I was shaving years off my discovery as an actress to realize, "Okay, that's what this feels like."

I want to work with people that frighten me and excite me, and characters that I don't believe I'm the best person for the part but I'm still gonna try anyway. Those are my favorite roles.

My acting wasn't the best. But damn, my ass looked tight.

I think I was raised in a solidly upper-middle class family who had really strong values and excess was not one of the things that my family put up with.

Because the world of this film begins and ends in the imagination of Tim Burton, you're not seeing a movie that's been shot on locations that you've seen a million times. Because this world has no rules, you're seeing so many different and separate brushstrokes and colors and characterizations somehow getting combined through Tim.

Taking a year off and going to school was the best thing I could have done after 'The Princess Diaries.' It taught me that I don't need Hollywood or a job to make me happy.

Your face needs to have character if you're an actor - otherwise you're just a face.