My parents are awesome, but they're pretty left-wing.

I remember when I first started being in magazines, I had pretty thin skin. I was this nerd that read books and stayed home and didn't go out.

There was a time when I was 19 when I really, really, really thought I was going crazy. I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression.

In retrospect, I think maybe Audrey Hepburn was going to talk to me about doing something for UNICEF. I was so overwhelmed to just even be in her presence and I was very young, but it was really special and unforgettable.

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'm quite comfortable looking at myself in movies, probably because I've been doing it for so long, since I was a kid. So I sort of watched myself grow up and go through adolescence, like, basically on camera.

I was very obsessed with Ruth Gordon. I really didn't foresee me having any type of career as a leading lady at all because it was just blonds. I just wasn't the type - I was told that by casting directors. I auditioned for Running on Empty [1988] and The Mosquito Coast [1986], and Martha Plimpton was just killing me.