Most of the girls I know are from my school. I've gone to school with the same people since fourth grade, so I can't wait to go to a place where I don't know anybody.

Communism destroyed so many generations. I look at my grandparents and their generation, and it's as if their lives were taken from them. It's really sad and frightening that something like that could have happened. But I don't really think of myself as Russian anymore. I didn't even live there for that long.

I need what I'm thinking to come out into the world, even if it's a two-word approval, like, "Yeah, I agree," I need that approval so that in the morning I can get up and use that when I go to work. It's a weird version of focusing.

Maybe silence is something we're uncomfortable with as a culture, I don't know.

I'm fascinated by how ethnic communities have assimilated into massive capitalist environments.

And also, that's the kind of wonderful thing about film culture, is the interaction between films and who works on what, where they were before, and now what they're doing now, and that inevitably informs how people view a film.

I've been lucky to play characters that are really broad.