I've always been a people-watcher, and as an actor, later, I just mined all those little details.

I listened to that voice inside me-... Everyone has an inner voice; you just have to listen to it and trust it in order to be led by it. I did that, and it gave me the ability to live a life that's true to who I am and what I really wanted.

You relate to a character and you find that character within yourself. It's all parts of me. I don't leave characters behind. I just let them go.

If I hadn’t left Texas, I might not have met the director Terrence Malick, and I wouldn’t have met my husband and I wouldn’t have had the children that I’ve had. Life is interesting like that.

Our perception of celebrities in Hollywood is not the reality. The reality of our lives is so much like everyone else's life. We have family members we love, everyone gets up in the morning, they have three meals a day and they go about their business.

But you finally think, there is what there is, and you have to work within those confines and just keep chipping away at your own work.

I wanted to put all my family stories down for my girls, and I remember everything so vividly. I just wanted to put everything down while I still can remember it all.