I was so lucky. I was very broke and I was taking classes at Lee Strasberg’s Institute and I saw a 3 X 5 index card on the bulletin board advertising for college-aged girls for a film. That was Animal House.
I don’t know if I’ve ever played a character who’s close to me. There have been some elements of myself in different roles. Sometimes, I show one side of myself and then completely conceal the other.
I feel as though I would be delighted to come back into working in the film world, and working in the theater world again. I’m just gonna see what happens.
I’ve had so many people just come up to me and say, ‘When you came up on the screen, everybody in the theater applauded.’ It’s just so sweet, really.
If there are no other wonderful roles that come my way, I have a quite an interesting, dynamic life.
Let’s just say I decided that while my son is young I don’t want to do projects that would take me away for months.
People want to see a movie that casts a mature woman across from a mature man.
There is a difference when you work with actors who have worked on the stage. When we’re out there in front of an audience eight times a week, you can’t do it on your own.
For me, the motivation really was to work with Al Pacino. To me, that seemed like an incredible opportunity, just a learning opportunity because I thought so highly of him.
As far as acting in films, there is not much out there that is very interesting to do. The ones that are interesting to me are independent films and they have trouble raising money. With people putting their money into blockbusters, there is not much left for the independents.
Idleness does drive me crazy, but I’d rather read or write than do anything just to work. A kind of respect has been instilled in me for acting: I love it too much to ever have a bad relationship with it.
I loved living and breathing theatre so much that I decided I had to find a way to bring my desire to act and my ability to support myself together. I’d run through the possibilities in Washington, so that meant moving to New York.
I thought, I need to reinvent myself. I want every day of life to be wonderful, fascinating, interesting, creative. And what am I gonna do to make that happen?
I just felt like I had to create a life for myself where I was more independent.
I don’t necessarily like being defined by my profession.
I’m from a generation of fantastic actresses. It’s a big pool of really wonderful actresses, and so many of them we never even get to see on the screen anymore.
I’ve never done anything for money. My first love is things of limited commercial appeal. I could be happy doing Shakespeare for the rest of my life.