When I was younger, I was actually looking forward to getting older, to have more insight, more understanding.

o matter how much research you do, or invention you do, whether it's a character from a novel, a completely invented character or someone who actually existed, it's a work of faction. By the very fact you only have an hour and a half or two hours to tell a story, you're telescoping events and it is, in the end, a work of imagination.

I don't think about being beautiful or not being beautiful. ... It's more about feeling confident inside your own skin really and thinking about yourself as little as possible.

I don't understand a way to work other than bold-facedly running towards failure.

When you're onstage, you're acutely aware of the reaction of a particular group of people, because it's like a wave.

Personally, I prefer to play against the look: If a character appears particularly unhinged, with makeup running down her face, I like to play her as if she has it together. I think that juxtaposition makes it so much more interesting.

I think you're peripatetic when you work in this industry. My husband and I are assuming the role of co-artistic directors at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2008. But as long as the film industry will have me, I will have it.