Because I think in order to get famous you have to be known for something. Like 'You're the romantic comedy girl' or 'You're the Oscar-winning whatever girl.'

I would LOVE to be in the Star Trek sequel! Yeah! I would love to! I better write that letter to J.J.[Abrahams]

Normally, I would do research. For The Constant Gardener, I played an activist, so I went to meet activists. You can find them dotted around. But with The Brothers Bloom, I couldn't meet a nutty heiress who lived in a bubble in a mansion. There was no one to meet. So this was just an active imagining, a daydream.

The older you get the more capable you get at managing life.

I think acting came later in life when I went to college. I started out there. I wasn't a big star in the school plays or anything. I guess I just really liked stories. I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives. Film and theater are very powerful storytelling mediums. You sit in a dark room and enter another world. I love that as a member of the audience, and I sort of wanted to get on the other side.

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.

Fear is like the steam that fires the combustion engine. You need fear to get a performance going.