I didn't go to Catholic school but I had a tough teacher, a tough math teacher.I remember everything that guy taught me. I really do.

And it interferes with your ability to be a good actress if you're constantly aware of yourself as a person. To me, it isn't valuable to think about how I'm coming off all the time if I'm trying to create a character, because that's a process that I love. It's like falling in love and surrendering to another person or a character.

Teachers perform major miracles in America, daily.

All an actor has, I think, is their heart, really,...that's the place you go for your inspiration. If my heart wasn't filled with them, where would I get stuff? What would I have to express?

My mother was someone that walked into a room and lit it up. She made friends easily and she communicated her enthusiasms with great joy. I always wanted to be more like my mother than I am. I loved and admired her very deeply.

I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.

We don't like to talk about that in America, but there are classes in America. And she [Julia Child] was of a class of women who were wealthy, privately educated, went to Smith, moved in that sort of circle. She was conscripted into the OSS, which is the early CIA, which was all filled with Yalies and Princeton and Harvard people and a few women who were typing mostly but also had something to do.