You never know how things will turn out. And you can't really say it turned out wrong. Whatever happens, happens. The important thing is that you followed your gut.

I was offered more work after the Oscar. When I was younger, I would take whatever I was offered because it was money and work and experience. In a way, choosing is the hard part. I know that's a luxury problem, but it's true. I try to go where passion takes me.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

With a group of people, a troupe of actors in the theater, you go out on tour, and you're like a traveling circus. It's very sociable, and there's a real community, and it's very intense, and then you may never see them again. That was very appealing. I mean, it wasn't consciously appealing, but I think a lot of actors like that.

I'm too disorganized.

Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, I think the lesson I learned from [playing humanitarian Tessa in The Constant Gardner] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.

You have to be quite stupid to act.