I'd like to learn how to cook. I've hauled around this big, old, heavy Martha Stewart cookbook in my suitcase to Cape Cod, L.A., Paris. I don't know what possessed me.

You do what you can. You have to leave room to grow and make mistakes.

My favorite charity is the Womens Refugee Commission and the Nomi network.

I was an optimistic person, really bossy, gregarious and outspoken.

My first day on the set of 'John Adams', I was just supposed to fly to Virginia for a costume fitting. But the director figured, why not shoot it, too? So they threw me into a dress that didn't fit, gave me lines I hadn't seen, in a dialect I didn't know, and two screaming, arching infants.

I think a lot of people also have kids to reclaim thу innocence and experience it over again. I think it's about staying curious and not losing the sense of wonder.

All the women that are first born daughters in my family are named Mary, but we've all been given nicknames. I don't know how or why that started, but I'm nicknamed after my great-grandmother, who was Mamie. No one ever calls me Mary, except only if my husband is very serious about something.