Make yourself useful, not just on a day to day basis, but as a lifetime thing.
Being an actor is looked at like a prolonged game of dress-up. America puts movie stars on pedestals. In college, it’s the flip side. I sometimes have to justify my job to my professors because they’re focused on intellect and ideas.
I am a big fan of horror movies but I had never thought that I had wanted to act in one because I don’t think that actors get to do much in them. They’re usually just reacting.
Theater is like going to the gym for actors.
I think women get caught up too much in having a plan – ‘I’m going to get married at this age I’m going to have a kid at this age’ – and then they just try to find a guy who will fit into that picture. I don’t want my life to be based on that.
My regular school didn’t know what to do with me!
I am forever grateful that I got some training in the theater – it reduces performance anxiety.
Theater makes working in movies or TV seem like a cake-walk.
The only thing that gets me through any type of pain, emotional or physical, is to make it worthwhile by putting it into my work.
Seeing other people in pain causes me pain.
Yoga has stopped me from destroying my joints after running. It slows me down.
I’ve really turned a corner recently in terms of not taking work too seriously, so it is much easier for me to not take my work home.
I think I was born an artist. But the key is that I have a mom that encouraged and supported my artistic side. She still has the stick-figure drawings framed.
Education is huge for me. I went to public school until I turned thirteen, and was lucky enough to afford college once I became successful as an actress.
In my worst moments, I try to think about loving instead of hating. Creation versus destruction, know what I’m sayin’?
I am forever a romantic. I try to bring that into my work. I try not to be fooled by romance. Or work.
I’m not good at keeping secrets. If I’m entrusted with a secret from a friend, I can do that because I’m a good friend, but I don’t like having secrets, it makes me nervous.
I never think of myself as an actor who takes work home with them.
It’s not my job to critique the writing. I’m there to serve it. I had to figure out a way to make it work.
As an actor, you’re only one little piece of the puzzle; you’re fulfilling someone else’s vision. If you’re involved earlier on, you’re kind of creating your own.
We can become very short-sighted in terms of objectives. The first thing to go during times of economic crisis and budget cuts is funding for things that are essential and not-quantifiable, like the arts. Save Big Bird.