I always worry that people are going to be very confused; sometimes timelines get confused with how movies get made. So when I say, "Oh, I made this movie when I was going through a divorce," people think, "Oh no! She's pregnant with a child and divorced?"

I think that there is a tragic misfit at the core of me, and I've just done a lot of work on myself. I love a good self-help book; I've read a ton of them. I love self-help seminars and therapy and all that. I think that probably, at my core, if I had done no work on myself, I would probably be Laura from The Mysteries Of Laura, but I worked hard to be a more stable person because that's what I wanted out of my life.

Growing up, I was a very shy, wallflower type. I was not a nerd, but not popular. I was just invisible, like that person you probably didn't know you were in school with.

As the lead of a movie, you really set the tone off-camera as well, and that's a really big responsibility.

I had this crazy job, though, when I first got to Los Angeles... I answered this ad in the back of the newspaper to be a telephone psychic, and I did that for two days.

I'd been out in Los Angeles for about eight years, knocking around. I actually, instead of waiting tables, worked in offices as a temporary assistant.

Be willing to work for nothing in things you think are stupid. Make work for yourself. Make your own luck. Don't complain. Hopefully, the work will find you if you are ready.