There's an idea I came across a few years ago that I love: My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance and in inverse proportion to my expectations. That's the key for me. If I can accept the truth of 'This is what I'm facing - not what can I expect but what I am experiencing now' - then I have all this freedom to do other things.

I've never gotten up to see something one of my kids wanted to show me and not been rewarded.

Don't spend a lot of time imagining the worst-case scenario. It rarely goes down as you imagine it will, and if by some fluke it does, you will have lived it twice.

My age makes me think how valuable life is. How bad is something like Parkinson's in relation to not having life at all?

There's something I have about being Canadian - there's a distance it gives you when you live in the States and operate in American culture. You approach familiar things a different way; you come at it from a different angle. It's a trait that runs through a lot Canadian artists' work and actors' work and musicians' - that kind of special remove.

I always feel very connected to Canada. My reference for everything is my Canadian background, my life in Canada. Particularly on this issue of refugee immigration: I couldn't be prouder of Canada.

By the time I entered high school, I had forsaken academics altogether in favor of my burgeoning acting career.