The fact that I got into acting at all was kind of fluke-ish. I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.
In the '80s, I loved the movies of the '70s. Also I remember loving Klute [1971]. I loved Jane Fonda. Actually, I auditioned for the last movie she made before she retired for a while, Stanley and Iris [1990], which Martha Plimpton got.
I was never strategic really, but back when I was starting out no one cared. In the acting community, box office didn't matter. I really think it was a mistake when they started paying people like $20 million to do a movie because now it's all people think about. Is she worth it? Is he worth it?
That's an aspect of this business which can be very frustrating and aggravating. Most of what is written about you is wrong and so much of what does get printed is often about personal things that you don't want to have other people read about.
There's like this great thing that Bette Davis said when someone asked her, "How do you get into Hollywood?" "Take Fountain!"
It's just people should realize that the celebrity aspect of being an actor is very rarely enjoyable for people like me who would always rather go unnoticed and disappear into the crowd.
People think that they just want movies like Pretty Woman, when really they - at least the ones that I know personally - have been waiting for something that doesn't completely insult them.
I think I really scored with my parents. All of my friends pretty much came from broken homes, and my parents are still together, but not only that, they're still in love and still write together.
I think it's important to have as much as a normal life and take the time to get perspective because it only helps your work in the long run.
I was regarded as the school freak which further reinforced a lot of inhibitions and doubts I had about myself. I was a shy, frightened teenager for a long time.
My problems seemed so glamorous to other people, and everyone just thought I was so lucky. But then, I was lucky because my family was really there for me. I think I just felt like I really wanted to hold on to who I was as a person, and try to have as much of a normal life as I could.
Certainly with The Crucible, what I love is that every role in that is so crucial.But there's something almost comic. I remember there's that line where she says, "I am 18 and a woman, however single," which killed me every time!
If I showed you scripts from my first few movies, the descriptions of my characters all said 'the ugly girl'.
You try to get out there and live. I've always had good friends who've been very supportive and help make me feel good and grounded because I've never felt attached to the film industry.
I don't believe I am influencing anybody but myself.
Life's short, so if you're going to spend months doing something, it's gotta be pretty special... But I'm very happy to enter my Baby Jane years, and hopefully segue into the Ruth Gordon years.
My parents are awesome, but they're pretty left-wing.
I feel like I had to learn how to take care of myself and find out what made me happy aside from just making films.
I was so lucky that I got to meet certain people. It came through Roddy McDowall, who had become a photographer and would do these portraits of celebrities. Then he would get another well-known person to write a thing. He photographed me when I was 15 or 16, and he got Jason Robards to write the thing because he was sort of my mentor. And Roddy would invite me to these dinner parties that were insane. Like, Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen O'Hara and people that were just crazy. I still can't really believe that I met them.
Sometimes I'll watch a movie, and it's got some big star in it playing a working-class person, and the character is in a grocery store, and you can kind of tell, from just watching the scene, that this actor doesn't do their own shopping. So you have to have some sense of reality.
I approached work very seriously. I never went out. I couldn't fathom people who could go out to clubs... But I definitely went through a time where I was just terrified and exhausted and I didn't really understand. Hollywood... It just got to be too much for me.
I was always like, "I'm going to be the drunk judge who's like, 'Objection!' 'In chambers!' "
It would be great if teenagers could make movies. It's sad how some writers think they can write about stuff they don't understand.
I had this big complex because I didn't go to college. There was a whole era where I got linked to everybody. People that I had never met. I was like, "How? I'm home alone reading chapter 12 of a book."
As a character, it's very interesting to play someone who wants to change their life and have him change it.
