The brilliant costume designer Mary Zorphres had done all this research on West Texas in 1980. Every woman looked like that. At a certain age, they would get their hair cut off, let the gray go in, get that permanent, and wear those big glasses. She gave me a beanie bra so my boobs would hang down, and these old dresses. My hat's off to her, because I thought it was perfect for the movie. It was so great to have some comic relief right at that moment. No Country For Old Men is such an intense film.

Patrick Swayze had done The Outsiders already - he was certainly the star of our class - and for a big, sexy, horseback-ridin' Texan to come over and tell me that I'm beautiful, and look me right in the eye and make me accept that there's a beauty in the characters I play meant so much to me.

Patrick Swayze was risk-taking - because he not only did a transvestite, but in Donnie Darko, he played a pedophile! Talk about a risky thing for a movie star, and he jumped right in. We even shot some of those video sequences of his character out on his ranch. I mean, he opened his heart and his ranch to us. He was just an awesome guy.

Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were both so generous to me on the Rain Man set. I remember Tom was in the trailer when I said to the makeup guy, "You know, I would really like to not wear any makeup. I just have this feeling that she wouldn't have any." And Tom said, "Yeah, that's cool!"

Everything I've done hasn't worked out - you know, some things aren't as great as others - but I'm having so much fun, who cares? Isn't that what an artist is supposed to do? We're trying to change the world. Otherwise, why be an artist? You want to shake people up and make 'em think.

Tone is a very difficult thing. You can't write tone, I don't think. You can try - you certainly try. I write too, so I know I'm trying desperately to communicate to whoever's going to direct my pieces, the way I see the humor. But it's very difficult.

My father died right after the movie Rain Man was released. He got to see it, then literally the day before he died, he asked Mama to take him to see it one more time - because he knew he was declining. Tom's assistant at the time told him my father died, and he wrote me a very personal note. I haven't seen him since, but you can't say anything bad about Tom Cruise to me, because anybody who takes the time to do that is very special.