When I was working with Stanley Kubrick [on "Eyes Wide Shut"], he would always say, "You never tell the audience what to feel. Let them choose to have their responses."

I've just always been interested in how people lead their lives. How they survive in this world. I'm curious about people's damage, and navigating that and the way people forgive. I find it really interesting. That's why we have to transform on a daily basis, work on ourselves. It's work.

There are moments when you feel as if you have been blessed for a while, moments when you think this is perfect, moments when you start to believe that even for an hour, even for a year, it might all happen. So I'm determined to keep making it get better and better.

I credit literature for the reason I act because that was the door to me saying, ‘Oh! I can be somebody else. I can exist as someone else.’

Cinema is a director's medium, so you're saying, "What do you want?" Being an actor is about adapting - physically and emotionally. If that means you have to look great for it and they can make you look great, then thank you. And if you have to have everything washed away, then I'm willing to do that too.

I like the privacy of my life and I protect it quite vigilantly.

You aren't really anybody in America if you're not on TV.