I can't be a man. But I can embrace the head of a man, the intelligence of a man, the spirit of a man.

I think people have always liked in me the combination of being the underdog because I'm a tiny woman but I have enormous authority in myself.

When I was growing up, particularly during puberty in my teen years, I was so miserable because I elicited so much teasing and meanness from my teenage cohorts.

What's it like being opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger? For me? Are you kidding? Maybe if I'm lucky, come up to his navel!

I was always trying to make up for my size, to compensate. So to get people to take you seriously, you have to come at things with a great deal of strength. You have to emphasize that the way you are is unusual. That you don't come along every day.

For a while, I thought, maybe I should direct, until I got to New York and saw the stupidity of that idea. If it's hard to get into acting, what is it like for a woman to become a director?

When I was 16, nobody else talked like me. Nobody else sounded like me.