I've distilled everything to one simple principle: win or die!
Taking power away from a man is a dangerous thing. Someone always pays.
So you have the challenge of just learning the lines, period, and not only learning them, but learning them to the extent that you assimilate them, so that you're not worried about what the next word is coming out of your mouth when it comes to doing a scene. And you're also in the trenches with the writers, just in the wonderful kind of back and forth of how is it best to say something, even if it involves four or five words. I love that kind of thing.
I think having pets helps sensitize people to the natural world.
When you're on the set, and sometimes, because it's been so complex and the writers have been really writing, sometimes up until the last minute... And you kind of sit back; you separate yourself from your brain, and you say, let me see if you can do this. And that's the kind of challenge I like.
I get bored talking about myself, but I can talk about the work.
As an actor, I go where the good writing is. That's the bottom line.
I really think that effective acting has to do literally with the movement of molecules.
The word diva has a negative connotation.
People think that the ocean is big enough to sustain anything we throw at it - its hard to get into your head that it's actually finite.
I've found myself getting more and more cynical about what's happening to the planet - it makes me furious.
What's so fascinating about people is what they don't show. People are masters at it; usually actors show too much.
The best thing I have is the knife from Fatal Attraction. I hung it in my kitchen. It's my way of saying, Don't mess with me.
I've often been mistaken for Meryl Streep, although never on Oscar night.
I think there are certain actors that have that kind of energy about them, that taking over a room energy.
It puts you in a kind of a strange situation where everybody is looking at every little thing you do.
I love histories. I love learning. I love books that talk about people who made a real impact on history, because it always has to do with who they were at that time and what their personalities were like and what their strengths and weaknesses were.
Bunny boiler is now part of our language, and I'm proud of that.
I think Cruella is evil, because she's the devil. But all the other characters, I was able to find a common humanity with them somewhere, knowing where they're most fragile, where they're most vulnerable, knowing some of the things that happened to them that might have formed this kind of behavior.
There used to be a huge snobbism between the film industry and the television industry. I produced and acted in my first - well way back - but the first thing that I produced and acted in was Sarah, Plan and Tall. And the only place to go at the time for really quality television was Hallmark Hall of Fame. And think how much television has changed since then.
We were fortunate enough to have several good books detailing the camps and the women. Some were by the survivors. I also got to talk to some of the women who had been in the camp, survivors.
We have to be vulnerable as actors, but we have to protect ourselves.
There's something about a catharsis that is very important.
When you're playing a man, you can look tired and horrible and you still look okay. As a woman, if you're tired, it's terrible. It was such a luxury not having to worry about that.
I think there's something thrilling about going into a movie house and seeing everything on such a huge screen. I think we're in a culture now that is confronted with various sizes of screens, the biggest movie houses and then the smallest iPods.
