The studios insisted that only stars could make movies successful. And that was the real disappointment of the time. You'd see great writer-directors in the '90s becoming part of a system where financiers and movie stars could change the material. I came along just before all that happened.

As an actor in these movies you get to fill up something so much, to its capacity, and once you get there you're like a horse running onto the racetrack.

I can do comedy, so people want me to do that, but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep, deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side.

There are all these scripts where the women, if they're working, are prostitutes and lawyers with an angry streak who'll kill you. It's a reaction to women leaving their men and men being angry about it and saying it on some subconscious level

Sometimes you're not in the best environment. Sometimes you're not speaking the same language and it's not a good place to work. It's a lot to give, actually. And for not a lot of money.

In the '90s, indie movies could get financing, because financers gave money straight to directors... Now it's a different system. Indie movies got co-opted by the studio system.

I wouldn't say I was a queen. Maybe a little elf