Something always made me save myself. Either the Betty Ford Center or going onstage to perform in the theater when many people didn’t think I could do it.
I hate the idea of always having to interpret other people’s ideas and thoughts and words, because I’m very independent and, I guess, a free thinker.
I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course I am the temporary custodian of some incredible and beautiful things.
Acting is fun. It’s not my whole life. It’s not my entire being. It’s secondary to my life. My life is primary. I’m running in the primary, as you know.
A “name” no longer carries a film. People used to go to the cinema to see a “John Wayne film.” And you don’t have that thing happening now except in the rock world, which has taken the event out of movies.
Just in case you get pneumonia or die. The dangerous bits are always the last days of shooting.
On the film where I didn’t get along with the director, I just decided to not speak to him.
It’s amazing the gymnastics you can do when you don’t want to do something. How you can force yourself against all the forces of nature. I threw myself backward.
I’ve always sung in the shower. Now I make the stage a mental shower in order not to get too uptight and enjoy it.
I was born with scoliosis. I have a double curvature of the spine, and it’s forced me to use a wheelchair because the disease has really taken hold. It really saddens me that I can’t ride.
I would totally lose myself in the music and be a gypsy. I would go wherever I wanted to in my head – wherever the music took me. My body followed.
I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands. For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else.
I’ve always preferred animals to little girls or boys. I had my first horse – actually it was a Newfoundland pony – when I was three, and I loved riding, without anyone shackling me – riding bareback as fast as I could.
I don’t have a set pattern. I take things as they come. Usually with a great amount of relish. I just lay back and wait for it to happen. And it usually does.
Sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream.
I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me. And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern.
I always wanted to have a fragrance, and I always wanted to be able to connect with people in ways other than through film.
I have never wanted to be a queen! Cleopatra was a role, and I am an actor, so it was fun to play one, but it’s not real.
You can always avert throwing yourself in front of an oncoming train. There is something that just pulls you away – and it has pulled me away, because I’m not dead yet – just at the brink of impact. Sometimes I have been really grazed by that train.
I used to think that drinking would help my shyness, but all it did was exaggerate all the negative qualities.