The Oscars have become such a big deal these days that it's just used as adjective.

I take the responsibility of choosing seriously because it becomes an indelible part of your body of work. Something has to sing to me.

When I was 5, my mother threw a party, and a friend and I wrote and performed a play called The Dutch Doll.

There are all kinds of other things I could do, things I would probably like, but only acting would give me emotional fulfillment.

I was offered one of the roles in a big project that shall remain nameless. I thought the whole thing encouraged violent sex crimes toward women. It made horrible, ghastly rape violence seem sexy. I just didn't want to sign my name to it.

My major in college was Chinese Studies. It was very intentional.

I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera.

Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action.

The Oscars have become such a big deal these days that it's just used as adjective.

I assume that if people get to know me, they'll like me. If they don't, it's not my problem.

Once you've found something you know how to do, it makes you feel you don't have to be intimidated by someone.

It's the relationships between people that are more important than the sort of far away fantasies of what the good life is, the world of supermodels and Bud ads.

The name game is frustrating. Agents will say, They love you, but they're going to offer it to Julia Roberts first.

I had been looking for a New York apartment, but I said, Why not give LA a go?

We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people.

I have learned to pare down what I do and still be effective and strong in a role.

I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.

I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.

My father taught me how to substitute realities.

Being is like pretending.

I'll talk to myself out loud a lot.

I had a Christian upbringing - it was all about sin and guilt. I was very happy just kissing people. I was like the make-out queen - not even second base.

I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.

I want my life to effect the balance to the positive.

Sometimes I feel limited by people's perceptions of what I can and cannot do, or what I do or don't look like.

I have a hard time getting motivated to do something that seems like a career move. I've gotten into vague trouble with my agents for turning down work that I thought was exploitative.

I hate it when people use sex as a weapon against the people who are engaging in it. It's so hypocritical.

There was something about being in front of audiences when I was in elementary school plays that gave me a thrill. It was like the rush you get from a roller coaster drop.

Now that I've got some films under my belt, I have the courage of my convictions regarding acting. It gives me a leg to stand on.

I try to become more humble and more myself with every year. There was a while when I got famous where I was so confused and my head was spinning.

I'm doing things that are more artistic again, more close to the material that I love. I don't disparage those things that I did. They're just not as much reflective of who I am.

I always feel I can play a role - just give me the time to do the preparation and I'll be it.

Acting is what happens on the way.

Seven is more than a lucky number or a famous baseball player's uniform. It's the brain's natural shepherd, herding vast amounts of information into manageable chunks.

One of the first studies in the field of gender and language, by Don H. Zimmerman and Candace West in 1975, found that in casual conversations between women and men, women were interrupted far more often.

Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that's the foundation for everything great.

It's all kind of a big illusion: the white picket fence and the perfect marriage and the kids. Check that box off, check that box off, and move forward.

I am powerful.

I like money. You like money. We need the money. But, money is not going to bring humanity and spiritualism into your life.

There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do.

Assets are cold.

I've got a very deep and abiding passion about education being far more than buildings and textbooks; it's what children bring into school with them.

I'm being told it saves money to shoot in Toronto, because of tax benefits, the crews are cheaper, but what I save in the bottom line, I lose in a million other ways.

I am a person who is not mated.

A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in thetheatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.

Hinduism the perennial philosophy that is at the core of all religions.

I didn't choose solitude.

I have yet to meet a person whose favorite movie is 'Gigli', but I hope to meet them one day and give them a hug.