On stage you never watch yourself. You just experience it, and then you go home, and you feel pretty good if you gave a pretty good performance or crappy if you didn't. But in TV and film, you actually have to experience it while you're doing it, and then you have to watch it. And then when you're watching it, you watch it with a different sensibility than how you experienced it.

On stage you never watch yourself. You just experience it, and then you go home, and you feel pretty good if you gave a pretty good performance or crappy if you didn't. But in TV and film, you actually have to experience it while you're doing it, and then you have to watch it. And then when you're watching it, you watch it with a different sensibility than how you experienced it.

Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.

My biggest fear is that a paparazzi or someone ... is going to come in my backyard and see me when I get in my pool. That would be very unfortunate.

[Meryl Streep] just sent me an email, and I was like, "That's perfect." She was like, "Yes, Viola, now that you've just had your vow renewal...this is the best part of your life now. There's not anything that you don't know anymore in terms of what's good and bad out there, so now you can just fly." She's always imparting wisdom like that.

Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.

That's why there's so much bad acting out there, because you could see actors watching themselves.