It's very rare that you get to play a character over the course of so many films. Bella meant a lot to me and she will always be such a formative event in my career. I grew up with her and she and I have been on this great journey together. I also see many parallels between her evolution and my own because I lived through so many things along the way while playing Bella and having this connection to so many people involved in making the films over the years. It would be impossible for me to separate my world from Bella's.

I mean there's that awesome quote where Joanne Woodward said, 'Acting is like sex: you should do it, not talk about it.'

There's an idea about who I am that's eternally projected onto me, and then I almost feel like I have to fulfill that role. Even when things come out of my mouth, I want to be sure I'm saying exactly what I mean.

I hear actresses talking about this all the time - this idea that you sit in meetings and the studio says, "Well, you can't do that because the audience won't like that. They won't root for you. It's not sympathetic." I think that we've been served this one dish for so long that we believe that it's all that audiences want, but when we test them or throw something out there that has some truth to it, they seem to always respond.

I think romance is anything honest. As long as it's honest, it's so disarming.

My mother found a letter, though, that I wrote her when I was 8 years old and it was a letter where I asked if she could take me to the orphanage because I would like to adopt a little baby.

I'm asked all the time in interviews about who I am, and I know a few people my age who have a strong sense of self, but I couldn't say I know myself and sum it up and give it to you in a little package. I don't know myself at all yet.