I don’t even have voice mail or answering machines anymore. I hate the phone, and I don’t want to call anybody back. If I go to hell, it will be a small closet with a telephone in it, and I will be doomed and destined for eternity to return phone calls.
I never really had a childhood. I was around adults all the time. My favorite book when I was eight was “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex – But Were Afraid to Ask”. I was not afraid to ask.
When I did ‘E.T.,’ it sort of solidified the only family I know are these film crews. These gypsies. These filmmakers. That was the solidification and the clicking revelations of ‘This is what I want to do with my life and this is where I’m going to survive.’
I didn’t grow up in a traditional family, and I never had a family dinner around the table, so whenever I actually had a dinner ‘plan,’ it meant a lot to me; it made me feel excited and safe.
Being pregnant and having a toddler, as every parent says, is amazing. You’re very tired, but it’s so wonderful. God, it’s emotional, but it’s the best. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
I’m not insecure. I’ve been through way too much f**king sh*t to be insecure. I’ve got huge balls. But I’ve been humbled. That makes you grateful for every day you have.
I think my whole life, work has been a very important and positive thing for me. It never was something that made me feel unhappy or disengaged from life. It always makes me feel like I’m plugged in, in a really healthy way.
I think happiness is a choice. If you feel yourself being happy and can settle in to the life choices you make, then it’s great. It’s really, really great. I swear to God, happiness is the best makeup.
I love working with the actors eye-to-eye. I think something gets lost in translation, not only through a monitor, but when you leave the area where the actual scene is taking place.
I love the world through glass. The more old, dusty and tainted that glass is, the prettier and more impressionistic that is to me. I don’t need to see everything perfectly. I don’t like it.
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 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.
