“It’s an interesting thing when you discover something about yourself. To go: ‘Wow, I’m not the person I thought I was. I’m in the middle of something and I can’t actually deal with it.’”

I think quite often when you have a hell of a lot more money and time, as you very much do on a big studio film, you don’t necessarily have to make the decisions right there. You can always goback and reshoot it.

I made a conscious decision to live my life the best way I could and that meant to publicise myself as little as possible.

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’ve got a lot of experience with anorexia – my grandmother and great-grandmother suffered from it, and I had a lot of friends at school who suffered from it. I know it’s not something to be taken lightly and I don’t.

You bring yourself to every role, it doesn’t matter who it is, it doesn’t matter if it’s a mass murderer, you can bring something to it.

I like to do the pictures before people get too self-conscious. I like to be spontaneous and get a shot before the subject thinks too much about it.

It’s very rare to get a film script that has good dialogue. A lot of the time, you spend on film sets really fighting to find out how to say the words.

I’ve had my body manipulated so many different times for so many different reasons, whether it’s paparazzi photographers or for film posters.

Empathy is the main thing, putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and trying not to judge.

You have to learn the rules to be able to know how to break them.

I would be extremely stupid if I said that my looks had absolutely nothing to do with what I do, it [moviemaking] is a visual medium. I’m perfectly aware of that, the face and the body help. Of course they do.

I see the world through my eyes. It’s sometimes a strange world.

I’ve always gravitated towards people who are extreme. Whether its drugs, or kicking down doors. Normally, the people in my life had to escape to get back.

I think it doesn’t matter where you’re from, we all need a bit of romance.

I don’t quite understand what Tolstoy’s actual personal view of Anna is – whether he likes her or hates her, whether she’s the heroine or the antiheroine.

The most important thing in playing any character is not judging.

When I was a boy, I was taught never to use insulting expressions like, ‘I’ve been gypped,’ or, ‘He welshed on the deal.’

Gucci Mane is my brother, Birdman also, we’re working together but it is a form of brotherhood. We’re friends but there is no need to contract. In a sense, I’m signed on their labels, but there is no lawyer, no contract.

One of the things that happened is I did a lot of shitty gigs. When you do a bunch of shitty bar gigs you have to get used to people yelling at you, you’re used to thinking on the fly, to dealing with weird situations.

I’m always up for collaborating with brands and people who actually design, but doing your own line is a whole other beast. I don’t think I could deal with the criticism.

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.

All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

A leader is a dealer in hope.