I grew up around people, so I know 'em, and I do like playin' 'em. I'm not religious, but I am kind of a spiritual fanatic, so maybe I understand them in that way.

I love Maude Pearson character from Agel. I love that she walls her son up because he has a girlfriend! In fact, I have that clip on my reel - her walling him up and saying, "What are you going to do about that streetwalker now? You belong to me! What are you going to do?" And did you know the ghost mom has her own Angel trading card?

All of a sudden I got a vision of Guernica - Pablo Picasso's painting, which is one of my all-time favorite paintings in the world. I remember reading that it was very controversial at the time - some people said even used the word "childlike drawing" - and all of a sudden I thought, "This is like Guernica in Los Angeles!" And then it all made sense to me. It was all the elements that are the Southland.

The book by William Goldman, Adventures In The Screen Trade, great, awesome book. He talks about this very thing - that you can't get a star to do a part that's not what their public expects. And Sandy's Bullock not like that. She's taken a lot of chances over the years. And Patrick Swayze certainly wasn't like that. But I mean, maybe that is true. Maybe that's exactly why they didn't like All About Steve.

I've workshopped Medea where I have goddesses, and I'm naked onstage and painted gold, and talking in tongues, and the goddesses come and dress me, and Hecate arrives and fills me with the power to go kill the children so I can send them to the afterlife and do this for all women. They've never done a Medea like that. They're cheating themselves by not letting me do these roles.

I love smoking. I miss it every day of my life. If I found out that it didn't cause cancer, I would go out and buy, like, eight cartons right now.

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!"