“In an ideal world for me, I would like to go back and forth [between film and theater]. I kind of want to do it all”

I would like to, especially in film, play against type and do some heavier stuff. I’m intrigued by projects that deal with problematic people and things.

I’m at a place in my life where I do finally feel, at least most of the time, that I know who I am and I’m comfortable with the person that I am.

Awards are not something that I measure my work by. I’ve been so fortunate and I’ve gotten to do such terrific things that it seems petty to look back and say, ‘Oh, I should have gotten that prize.’ I’ve been so blessed, it’s hard to look back and think anything but that, so I have no disappointments.

Things don’t always tie up in a nice bow. Even when you make strides with people and relationships, it’s complicated.

I watch a lot of television. I always have.

Sometimes chemistry does the trick, and other times, you have to forge that with the people.

You always have to make positive choices as an actor, even when you’re playing someone who may not be doing the best things.

People saw me as just a singer – yeah, a pretty face who could sing – and not more than that.

I’m ready and open to meeting the person that hopefully I’ll share my life with. It takes a long time to get to that place.

What is wrong with you people?

After 9/11, the amount of applicants the FBI received increased exponentially. Whereas you used to require a college degree, and it was a small group of people who were just out of college, after 9/11, it changed.

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school. I had the middle part with a swoop, all that. It was the late ’90s!

Singing for stage, if you don’t hear yourself, that’s when you push, and that’s when you can hurt your voice sometimes. So if I can hear myself in my ear, it really helps me to find that balance of how loud I needed to be singing.

Once I came to acting, it was almost a thing where there weren’t enough hours in the day to work on stuff because I was so passionate about it.

Coming from a background of being onstage, you’re onstage for two and a half hours and you’re in it for the whole time no matter what you’re doing. Even if you don’t have a line, you have to stay in it.

I feel like I’ve been dealing with that building over the years because of the Broadway community, so I’m treating it in the same way – I’ve always tried to keep my personal life private. I didn’t get into this business for notoriety or fame. I don’t go to places to be seen and that’s not going to change.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.

Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.

If people really liked to work, we’d still be plowing the land with sticks and transporting goods on our backs.

Perfect love will never want the preeminence in everything, it will never want to take the place of another, it will always be willing to take the back seat.

I came home every Friday afternoon, riding the six miles on the back of a big mule. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing and ironing and cooking for the children and went back to my country school on Sunday afternoon.

What you need is someone to take hold of you–gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of–and I can! I’m determined to do it–and nothing’s more determined than a cat on a tin roof–is there?

People won’t want powers being handed back from bureaucrats in Brussels to be given to bureaucrats in Britain.