So I would hope they would develop some kind of habit that involves understanding that their life is so full they can afford to give in all kinds of ways to other people. I consider that to be baseline spirituality.

How will the bombing of Baghdad, a city of five million, accomplish a regime change?

I feel my family's needs are a priority. I'm not comfortable with the idea of serving the many and ignoring my family.

I was very withdrawn and definitely played with dolls well into eighth grade. But I was the oldest of nine, and that grounded me in a way that I don't think I would have been grounded otherwise. So I was able to - or forced to - function practically. But I think, by nature, I was someone who lived in my head, in my imagination.

Acting is kind of a forced compassion, where you learn that given certain circumstances, you can feel and do things that you never thought yourself capable of. And so it stops you from being super-judgmental.

I just love the fact that that's the way life is. When something horrible happens, you do find yourself laughing in weird places in the midst of grief and crying in the supermarket when you see a cereal that somebody used to eat. There's just no way of guarding yourself one way or another. Everybody grieves differently, and there's no right or wrong way.

We were friends with Jonathan Demme. We were all down on the West Side of New York, and I think I met Kurt Vonnegut through Edith Demme. And then I was lucky to do Who Am I This Time? 1982, which was an adaptation of his short story that Jonathan Demme directed with Chris Walken and I, and that really cemented the friendship.