“As an actress, you want to try new things. You don’t want to repeat yourself. That becomes more important to you, as you get older.”

That’s an aspect of this business which can be very frustrating and aggravating. Most of what is written about you is wrong and so much of what does get printed is often about personal things that you don’t want to have other people read about.

I want to be a good person, and a person that people enjoy working with, ’cause I certainly enjoy working with other people.

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.

I write pretty much every day, but I don’t have any desire to publish anything.

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.

It’s part of the celebrity process but my life has never been as interesting or as wild as what’s been printed about me.

I’ve learned that it’s OK to be flawed, that life can be messy, that some days you glide and some days you fall, but most important, that there are no secret answers out there.

I’m the type who’d rather not work than work on something I’m not into. I’ve done that a couple of times, and I feel like I can totally see it in my performance.

Money doesn’t matter on a deeply personal level. It doesn’t make you feel any happier. But of course I am very aware that I don’t have to worry about earning a living or about those very important practical things that most people have to worry about on a very real level.

I think it’s really important to have a life outside of this [movie] business and just be the best person you can be.

I think I really scored with my parents. All of my friends pretty much came from broken homes, and my parents are still together, but not only that, they’re still in love and still write together.

You do a movie if it’s good and if you want to do it. It doesn’t matter if it’s small or big or expensive or cheap. If you want to say the words, you’re gonna say them. You can’t strategize.

I’ve learned that it’s OK to be flawed.

I’ve loved making movies. I feel like I’ve been so lucky because I’ve gotten to be in movies that are some of my favorites, regardless of my being in them – like ‘Heathers.’

I’d always find the positive in someone.

You have good days and bad days, and depression’s something that, you know, is always with you.

The audience makes the decision of what kind of actor they want to watch. I always have said in the last 20 years, the real boss is the audience.

Method actors are like hams.

If there is something magic about the collaborations I have with actors it’s because I put the character first.

Only a madman or an actor would want to be President of the United States.

I didn’t want to be an actress; I never thought of being an actress because, as children, there were three of us – I was the middle child – and we spent our time in church from Sunday morning to Saturday night.

My parents said, Oh, he’s going to be a director someday. I wanted to be an actor.

My experience of singing, as an actor, was that there’s a different creative feeling of freedom. The acting thing is a bit more defined and cerebral. I can see why people would want to cross over. If you have so much freedom on stage then perhaps you want to be confined a bit, and vice versa.

In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. And I wanted to use my career as a platform.