I guess a normal woman would find it extremely enjoyable to wear fancy clothes. For me, I didn't enjoy it. It felt like a straight jacket.

There is some liberation in the freedom of being totally alone and really going for it.

How do I do that preparation [for film]? Just an immersion. I have a musician's, I guess, ear for the sound of the voice but it's also important to me, in the case of [playing] someone who is controversial, to get the outlines of the character right because how they present themselves to the world has a great deal to do with how people feel about them.

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

No one has ever asked an actor, 'You're playing a strong-minded man.' We assume that men are strong-minded, or have opinions. But a strong-minded woman is a different animal.

It's sort of my fun to sing along with records and imitate people who are on the telephone that have different ways of speaking.

Everyone is interesting. Everyone has something unexpected to offer and the job of acting is to pull it out of each other.