Have no regrets. Every relationship leads you to where you're meant to be. Learn to be comfortable with being alone. Learn to be comfortable with saying no to people; we put everybody else before ourselves. Read great literature; don't get all your information from TV. Define your moral code - nobody else is going to give you that. Find it yourself. Keep asking questions, keep challenging. You don't have to conform. Rebellion creates character. And, as my mother always said to me, "Don't let anyone break your spirit!"
Happiness, that's obviously different for everybody, but what I call my joy, the thing that makes me feel incredibly satiated, is my family, and then I get to go and play out all of my ideas and feelings through all these different characters.
I think actors are getting so much more power these days, but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions, the way in which things are orchestrated, what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.
I suppose the underlying current for me is the idea of not doing something I've done before. I call myself a character actor and I'm always trying to stay a character actor.
Once I start putting all my little insecurities in my mind, I'm not actually acting. Then it's about me - and it should never be about me. It should be about the character.
In particular, for my character, Celeste [in Big Little Lies], there was a way in which we wanted to present her, because she has sort of barriers that she has to put up for protection because of things that are going on in her life. Yet she wants to be, I suppose, very presentable but neutral.
With every character, you alter, you can’t be attached to your own identity.
When you know psychologically what [characters] are feeling, then that plays out on how you dress a lot of times.
I think having my life be as private and quiet as possible is a way in which then I can go and play characters.
