It's pretty boring, working by yourself. The scene happens in between the two of you, and then you don't know what it's going to be because it's a kind of combustion. So, you do take something from every actor you work with.
I like the excitement you get at touching another human being when you're acting with them and then having a little spark and not knowing what is going to happen in between you.
When you become a parent, you finally appreciate and understand what your mother did.
Men aren't asked about age. Men aren't asked about their children. Not that these things aren't important, but I do feel like it becomes reductive when a woman's life becomes, 'Talk to me about your kids and how you feel about plastic surgery.'
I think all of us struggle with how to keep relationship alive. And yet it can't be static either. It's never going to be how it was when you first met because you're not in that place anymore; you're not necessarily the same people. So, that's the struggle - you're trying to make the relationship move forward with the rest of your life and make it special and meaningful. And I think it's incredibly challenging.
I was a bookworm, and very skinny with big, thick glasses. I never went on dates and guys were afraid of me because I was smart. So I got contact lenses, started to dress a little better and tried not to talk about Plato with boys. It worked!
Comedy is ridiculously hard. And if the rhythm is not right, if the music or the line is not right, it's not funny.
You're in a movie, so you have to think about how something plays. It's not like you're thinking about how an audience is going to react. You're trying to present the story. You're trying to illuminate the lives of these people in the story. So I'm thinking about how my behavior as this character best illuminates what's going on with them in this moment in time. I always say it's sort of the director's job. People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.
You always absorb a lot from a great actor. What you want, as an actor, no matter where you are in your career, is a partner who's going to bring everything they have to the scene.
I would be lying, if I said that sometimes it is just a job that you show up for because you're getting paid, and that's important, too. But, if you can be in a state of mind where you enjoy your job, whether it's just a job, or it's actually cathartic for you, or it's something personal. I think it would be much easier to be content with doing a good job.
I hope this brings someone else the courage they need to face whatever challenge is before them.
When I was younger, I thought I had to shut myself off, work really hard to cry. I learned after a while that that's just not... You know, often in life, you cry when you're caught off-guard. That's where I need to be when I'm acting, too.
A mid life crisis is nothing but getting to the point where you go, have I done what I wanted to do? Am I living the life that I want to live? Am I appreciating what I have? If you don't get to that point developmentally, you're not doing it correctly. The people who get to that age and haven't reassessed usually haven't faced the fact that that's where they are.
I don't consider myself very brave in any sense. I'm interested in this kind of behavior. My job is to try to make it realistic and emotionally resonant. That's the most challenging thing, to bring emotional resonance to what you do as an actor.
My life may be a pretty crazy life at times, but its a very privileged one - being able to earn a good living doing what you love. Not many people have such an opportunity.
I do Ashtanga yoga three times a week, and I run a couple of times a week, too. I really like yoga; I enjoy the actual doing of it, so it doesn't feel like the agony of the gym felt like to me.
In cinema people are always walking into something and saying this is who I am, what I want, and how I'm going to get it and we don't in life - particularly not in public situations. People might know your first name, not your last name, they don't know what you do, and you're not going to offer it up. So if you start there and you realize this is a much more normal presentation in a film then you would ordinarily have; you know that there is a big life behind what everyone presents and that I think is super interesting.
One of the things that I love about L'Oréal is that it's accessible and aspirational. Beauty doesn't have to be a mystery, and it can be available to everybody. But it's also about accessing what is most innately human, what we think is attractive.
I read a lot, I always read. I like to be inside a story. When I started acting, even in high school, it sort of felt like that's as close as you can get to being inside a book, and I feel that way even with movies more so, because you've kind of created this imaginary world, and everybody is colluding to create it.
When I started out, the most terrifying thing was when I had to be very, very emotional in front of lots of people. Now I've kind of learned that it is very important to keep talking all day, keep making jokes, and be connected with people, and be present. It's very important for me to be absolutely present in order to be emotional. I learned that is sort of the way I need to be.
We shouldn't require our politicians to be movie stars. Then again, we're all influenced by charisma. It's hard not to be. We all collectively fall for it.
Right before I met my husband, I always felt as if the party was happening somewhere else. And once I met him and we had our children, I was like, 'This is where the party is.'
Nobody does a lot of plotting. They can't. Everybody wants to do that in life, but I think it's almost impossible. Opportunities present themselves, and you say, "Hey, is this interesting to me?" Is this something you might want to pursue? Maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't. It really does have to do with a "one foot in front of the other" kind of thing, I think.
If you are at odds with the director, neither one of you is going to get anywhere. You really do have to be able to make both of you happy.
I like stories about people. I like things that are human and different. I want to be as engaged in my work as I am in reading a book. I want to be electrified by the films I do.
