People's view of cancer will change when they have their own relationship with cancer, which everyone will, at some point.

What people can survive and what they don't survive is shocking to me. Someone can go to Iraq and be blown to bits and survive. Someone can trip and fall on the street and they die - that's that.

People can't really place me. They're not really sure who I am. Sometimes they think I'm Helen Hunt. Sometimes they think I'm Laura Dern.

To be too knowing is a downfall.

I know that actors and actresses have a great reputation for being very, very selfish, and in some cases, that's very true. But in the theater I find it doesn't help you to be selfish. You sort of have to be selfless in the theater, and the more selfless you are - that doesn't mean don't take care of yourself - but the more you sort of surrender to the work, I find, the better the work is. That's just my experience.

It was so soon after I'd had my son and I really wasn't planning on going back to work for a while. I will walk over hot coals to work with Bill Condon on anything, the experience that you have with him is just too good... I've certainly never worked with him before so the trio of Bill [Codon], Ian [McKellen], and Sherlock Holmes, and England: it was too much to say "no" to.

I always laugh to myself when I listen to some really big A-list star saying that they are just a normal person.