I don’t like working by a monitor. I stand right next to the camera, and I’m very performance-oriented. That really means everything to me, whether it’s doing an improv of a joke or an emotional scene, and everything in between.
I decided very early on that it took too much of my energy to pretend to be someone else. People will make up their minds about me whatever I do or say, but at least I know I am being true to myself.
I understand there are inevitable things that we have to go through: heartbreak, family problems. I don’t feel like some Quixotic idiot who says, ‘We don’t have to feel pain.’ No! Let’s feel it, let’s make it work for ourselves. But I want us all to be able to get past it.
I am not a rodeo clown, like, “Everything is awesome!” I really worked hard on myself and things and struggled to get to a good place, to a better place.
I’m very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention.
I’d definitely be the kind of parent who enabled my child’s dreams. I’d just watch and nurture and guide them. I have the blueprints of what not to do… I think I’d be a good parent, actually.
Being a Barrymore didn’t help me, other than giving me a great sense of pride and a strange spiritual sense that I felt OK about having the passion to act. It made sense because my whole family had done it and it helped rationalise it for me.
I try to make movies that I would want to go see rather than ones I would just want to do as an actor. I want people to have movies full of romance and hope and empowerment, something they can escape into and feel good about. I love happy endings.
