I've always been very shy and sheltered; I think it was a good way of starting to communicate with people. I was taught as a child never to talk about myself, never to talk about my emotions. Of course, now I talk about myself constantly. Now I have to take reverse est.

I think so many families are touched by illness and loss, and we kind of overprotect our children often, you know, we sanitize.

With Alien, because we always use a different director, each one kind of stands on its own. So I guess it's possible for them to make another one, but we have no plans.

I actually have a long apology letter from Robert Brustein, saying, "I'm so sorry this happened to you. I didn't realize the people who were running the acting department at the drama school hated actors." They did. And they were fired when I graduated.

I guess it's a pretty common experience while making a movie. You have to let go of the result and just hang on to the experience and the process, where each role takes you to a different country, as it were: You're shipwrecked on this new island, you have no clothes, you have to figure out how you're going to live in this new character. All of that turns me on.

People who run environmental groups and things like that, who have to listen to all kinds of nonsense and keep their tempers, are very diplomatic and very inclusive.

My mother said, "Pack your bags and leave." And my father said, "I've already paid for a year and a half - why don't you stay and get the degree?" And I said, "That's a good idea, because then I can at least run a theater even though I have no talent, and I'll never be an actor." It's my fault that I believed them.