If I showed you scripts from my first few movies, the descriptions of my characters all said 'the ugly girl'.

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

I think it's really important to have a life and have interests outside of this [movie] business, and not rely on this business to validate you as a human being. If you do that, you're really in a dangerous spot.

You're lucky if you're in three great movies, or even one great movie. I've been so lucky. But if you rely on the business to dictate whether you're happy, it gets really complicated. You just can't do that. There have been times in my life that I've done that, and I've found it depressing.

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

The fact that I got into acting at all was kind of fluke-ish. I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

Scapegoating will go on forever. We need someone to blame - illegal immigrants, single moms, people in prison. We need someone to victimize.