They give us access to another world, they give us access to dreams. It's our way of living in a different realm for a short period of time - and how beautiful is that?

I think it's important for me as an actor that I say these are the issues I'm going to be committed to. One of them for me is women and children's health around the world and their rights;the other is ovarian cancer.

I'll put it out there: I love getting hugs.

You start out with big dreams and I mean, big dreams artistically. You want to work with the greatest living directors, make a great movie. I wanted to make a great love story, I wanted to make a great epic and then you realize that the truth of it is that it's so hard to make a great film. It's hard to get a great role. Those big expectations change to realism pretty quickly. But what's never changed is my desire to work with great directors and to find projects that push me out of my comfort zone and keep me alive. I still don't think I've done my best work

I want to be in places I've never been before.

That sort of detailed filmmaking is one, hard to do and not have it be pretentious, and two, have it tell the story, which is what you're taught, that cinema is the language of images and you really should be able to make a film with no dialogue and tell a story.

As a woman now, I want to share things. I have girlfriends in their twenties, and I say, "Ask me anything. You can learn from the things I did wrong, and you can learn from the things you think I'm doing right. Take whatever you want and make it your own."