I was raised to believe that religion is a beautiful thing, but it's fiction.

I have this sense that I didn't really start growing up until my twenties.

I was so spoiled in a way. I worked very hard, but there was just a wealth of great roles.

Bette Davis, she was so brilliant and one of my heroes, but she worked a ton, and then she didn't get All About Eve [1950] until the last minute. Claudette Colbert was supposed to be Margo Channing, but then she broke her back and couldn't do it. That allowed Davis to play her age.

I remember realizing, when I did Little Women [1994], that that was the only time girls that age were being written about. It was always boys - from David Copperfield to Lord of the Flies to Holden Caulfield. There were never young women going through adolescence or teen years; there were only little girls.

I love my job. But all the stuff that comes with it, the thought of being propelled into the limelight again is not something I sit around and fantasize about, certainly. I'd much rather just do my work, and then go home and read my books and watch movies.

Society makes suicide so romantic. I mean, you watch these TV movies about teen suicide and you want to jump in front of a bus. Because your biggest fantasy is your own funeral. No one will admit to it, but it's true.