I loved acting when I was doing it, but getting the jobs I didn't understand because I'd never had to do it. That was a difficult lesson for me. It was very humbling and very bizarre.

Manhattan, though, was an entirely different ballgame in a whole different kind of world, with a man who was brilliant and at the same time terribly charismatic.

But the experience that I had, which was basically just feeling loved and taken care of in a room full of thousands of people I didn't know, seemed to be a pretty strong sign that what I was doing was a good thing.

The 'Hemingway curse' was such a huge, awful thing for me to have to deal with. . . . The reality is, because there are genetic tendencies toward mental illness, you need to be aware of them.

Number one, we have to talk about mental illnesses. Number two, you can actually address things from a purer and honest direct line to what's been going on in your life and how you've been feeling and why you think the way you think. I do think there is a genetic predisposition for mental illness, for depression, for suicide, but I also think that lifestyle can change things. If you're an addict, if you drink and you're putting a depressant into your body, it's going to cause serious problems.

I'm an extremely vulnerable person. Vulnerability and emotion are very closely linked.

Cancer came back into my life twice in order for me to understand something, and I guess I still wasn't getting it. And my husband wasn't getting it, either.