I was a wayward child, very passionate and very determined. If I made up my mind to do something, there was no stopping me.

There's something really empowering about going, 'Hell, I can do this! I can do this all!' That's the wonderful thing about mothers, you can because you must, and you just DO.

Very thorough in the rehearsal process but more in terms of just understanding the characters, understanding where the actors are at with discovering those characters for themselves, and just setting an overall emotional tone for the piece as opposed to necessarily getting things up on their feet or staging scenes.

With The Reader, I'd just be shattered at the end of every day really. I wouldn't really want to talk. We kept saying, because we were in Berlin: "If we get back at a decent hour, let's go and have a glass of wine." We'd always think it would be a great idea, but then get to the end of the day and then go [acts drowsy and blabs]. It was very difficult for everybody.

Every woman has a mother, and every woman will have an issue with that mother and things that mother did or didn't do. It just depends on how you choose to process the lessons that you learned from your own mother.

There were days when I would say, 'God, I can't be without Leo'. He was my rock. We were such a team, nothing could break us, nothing could come near us.

It doesn't matter how old you are, or what you do in your life, you never stop needing your mom.