I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that's kind of a natural progression. But I'm definitely drawn to it. It's probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.

Let how you live your life stand for something, no matter how small and incidental it may seem.

My earliest memories are doing commercials and TV.

I was never the ingenue or the pretty girlfriend of Tom Cruise in a movie. I didn't have that career, so I don't have to compete on that level.

I made, like, five movies while I was in college. I think they just weren't memorable movies. I've taken breaks as the years have gone on - I burn out every once in a while.

I saw leaving college as an opportunity to do something different with my life. I always thought that becoming an academic was going to be my path.

Every movie changes you. The process of making a film changes you. You have to be obsessed, you have to get up at 3 in the morning and go "Wait, I have an idea!" You have to continually be drawn over and over again to deepening inside that story, and ruminating over questions: "Why would he say this to her? Why if he was standing there, would she go?" Every one of those answers has to come from some personal place, and in order to do that, you can't sit on the surface. It's such a big change that you can't really explain it to anyone else.