My parents never looked at my acting as a career. They saw it as a way to help provide for the household.

We all compromise ourselves, from time to time, because maybe it will lead to more opportunity...A ll of that’s cool, but we forget and we get caught up. If you want that nurturing, caring, empathetic, compassionate heart to keep on ticking and be around, and you want it to be strong, then don’t neglect #1. One way to feed it is just being truthful and listening to your heart.

I could take you for a walk on the beach and I could point out just about any creature and give you their Latin names.

Some people say that you should go to all the parties, to the nightclubs, the Viper Room, and make contacts, and I look at them and say, 'You don't want to have contacts with those people.' Look at what happened to River Phoenix [who died in 1993 of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room]. If you get caught up in that, it ruins you. Hollywood is garbage.

If speed one day kills me, don't be sad because I was smiling

What I find really difficult is making career decisions. Normally it will take me two weeks, until the very last minute and I have to say yes or no. For a couple of weeks, I will tune everyone out who is giving me advice, so that I can make a clear decision on my own and it takes time.

Being a digital photographer I'm in awe of the older generation of photographers who created all those iconic cinematic style images on film, such as Man Ray's portrait of the photographer Lee Miller.