I think in real life most of us don't know how to communicate our deepest feelings very well.
We hurt each other because we care about each other.
I think when things happen in our lives that we can't truly understand why they destroy us, it's because we can't truly understand or communicate it to anyone else. And that is what is destructive - you can't communicate it to the people that you love and it makes things deteriorate. Or you're hiding from yourself, or you're hiding from somebody else, and that was really fascinating to me... that life isn't like the movies and you can't always point to one thing and explain why you did things that ended up hurting you.
Being raised Catholic myself, I think people who are Catholic tend to carry a lot of guilt. It's almost a joke.
I think you have to have a little bit of a screw loose to think that you can [become an actor] because the odds are so against you. I was just crazy enough to think I could do it.
I'm trying not to put pressure on myself to decide what to do at this moment, and just sort of go with what's happening.
You can be a woman in charge of a production and still be generous and kind and insightful and decisive without being considered a butch in any way.
Yes, I'm very close to my family. And being that close to your family, I think you also struggle with how to become your own person.
I like diversity; I want one character to be very different from the next. I love to live with a character for a long time if I can, but I like one character to be different from the next.
Just because someone isn't working at an office doesn't mean they're not working hard at something.
People are drawn to watching things that are dramatic. And the tighter a relationship is, the more dramatic it can be. That's something family lends itself to. Everybody has family, somewhere, somehow. Those relationships are always very complex. This takes it to almost Greek-tragedy-level heights. That's fun to watch, although it's very uncomfortable. It explores the darkest sense of family.
You know, the hard thing about audiences not liking what a character does is that they sometimes take it out on the actor personally. That's something that you know when you become an actor or actress, but it's always hard to deal with when it actually happens.
People who have no idea it's me when they first see me playing something, and later they realize, 'That's her from whatever it is,' it's a great compliment that they can forget.
One thing I like about trying to write is that I can possibly write myself a role. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever roles are out there that people are willing to give to you.
I just got back from Switzerland, which I've never been to. I went to Switzerland and Amsterdam.
I love to work on a set whether it's mostly men or mostly women, but there's something about being in a community of women that changes the energy.
When I was a kid, 'Scooby Doo' was, hands down, my favorite cartoon. Even when I was older, when I was in college studying and I needed to tune out for a while, I'd watch 'Scooby Doo.
The one thing about being on 'ER' that has changed is that I'm more easily recognizable.
There are not that many jobs as an actor where you don't get to know what your character will be doing from episode to episode.
One of my favorite things to do is not to speak on screen. In theater it's different because there's a lot of emphasis on language - it's a different medium. But that is one of the most wonderful things about film. A person's face can say so much more than their voice can.
I think some of the most important things we read about other people occurs from being able to read their faces and their eyes and their body and those kinds of things.
I always had something to think about or draw from, which as an actor is a gift. The beautiful thing about film is that it gets so much closer than stage. I love stage and that's what I started doing and it's a beautiful art form in of itself, but in film you can move your eyes to the side and somehow the audience can fill in the blanks of what you're thinking.
I had a really scary pregnancy and a very difficult delivery. My daughter and I are lucky to be alive.
Regardless of how you feel about war and peace those serving military are doing a duty for the rest of us and they're protecting a way of life that they sometimes come back to and it's not close to them.
After I finished 'E.R.', I wanted to concentrate on re-examining what kind of actress I am and taking time for real-life things.
