“It was a mixed blessing to have famous parents. It was tough to go to auditions and be bad, since I couldn’t be anonymous.”

I don’t think the public is dying to see me necessarily be funny all the time.

I actually started working on Madagascar before my daughter was born.

Sometimes I wondered whether I hadn’t let my career get confined to one direction, but lately I’ve decided to accept the fact that I have this opportunity to be successful doing comedies.

I don’t know what that weid fantasy is that makes people go, “Oh, you must have had a great childhood.”

God was showing off when he made you.

Nobody makes me bleed my own blood – nobody!

Paul is Starsky, and I met him before shooting. He was very kind and encouraged us to go with what we wanted to do. It was very sweet to see them back with the car after 25 years.

A eugoogoolizer…one who speaks at funerals…Or did you think I was too stupid to know what a eugoogooly was?

When I didn’t have a family, I was much more of a workaholic. I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it’s not fun, what’s the point?

I think the most serious genre is the thing you’re going to get the most out of. If you’re trying to satirise a comedy, it’s hard to do that – it doesn’t really work as well. But I love the war movie genre and I’m a fan of all those movies that are part of what this movie is.

I’m just not a naturally cheery person. I’m naturally moody. I know that from people who spend a lot of time with me. People who spend a lot of time with me may not wish to spend a lot more time with me.

You’re freaked out that you’re going to be having a child, and once you’re looking after your daughter, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

You have to stay in character in between takes.

I was staying on [writer/director/actor] Eric Schaeffer’s couch in New York, and he said, “I’ve got this movie [If Lucy Fell]. Can you do five days on it?”

I’m very interested in the early American history, the time when the country came together.

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.

For me, acting is becoming naked in front of people, you know? And when you know in the back of your mind somebody is testing you, you cannot really bare yourself. That’s a feeling I always have when I’m auditioning.

I auditioned for the role of an angel in the Nativity play at school. I didn’t get it. I auditioned for Mary; didn’t get it. So I made up the character of the sheep who sat next to Baby Jesus.

I’ve been auditioning since I was 7 years old.

When I am not auditioning or meeting people, I teach myself dance.

In L.A., I’m twice the size – height and everything else – of most of the other actresses who are going for an audition.

I was not a girl who grew up buying $100 candles. I was the girl who ran out of gas on her way to an audition.

My mother often says that she could never have done it if I had been the youngest, if she had other small children she had to cart around New York City for my auditions and go-sees (modeling auditions) and stuff.

I’m proud of everything I achieved with ‘Idol,’ and away from ‘Idol’ also. It’s just such a different show now to what it was when I was on it. I didn’t even know it was a TV show until the third audition.