I don't know if I'm always going to be acting. Maybe when I grow up, I will be a scriptwriter. I already have a few scripts in my head.
I started as a writer; I started writing when I was little. The acting and directing was an outgrowth of my desire to tell stories.
Film acting is one of the only industries where you're criticized for working hard. In any other industry, it's considered a quality and something to behold.
With acting, I always felt like I didn't have control of it. It was all about other people giving me a job.
In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.
Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act.
My role as Ewan McGregor's girlfriend in the film 'Incendiary' ended up on the cutting-room floor, but at least I had two brilliant days of acting with Ewan.
I think things through a lot, so I probably use my head more than my heart. That probably comes through in my acting.
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.
A lot of girls ask for advice on how to get into acting, and I'm kind of the worst person to ask, because it just kind of fell in my lap... I was just in the right place at the right time.
The first time I acted was in high school in Florida, and when I heard that applause I felt so alive and felt that electricity go up my spine.
You start acting just as soon as you walk into the door of that casting office. You can't just be yourself because they don't want to hire you.
They say 6 million people see you when you act in a film; it may only be 600 in a play. But the effect on the 600 may be truer and more lasting.
Anyone with a gun can go out and commit an act of terrorism, even without a political affiliation.
Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
I don't want to be disrespectful to people who are incredible at their craft, but the truth is, if I didn't get paid for it, I wouldn't act. The best-paying jobs are usually the worst films. You're a very small cog in a big machine.
In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by their sense of the Spirit behind the action, not by any speculations as to consequences which might ensue. And so they found the truth.
To judge therefore of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rule is like trying a man by the Laws of one Country who acted under those of another.
What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that's how I approached the part.
Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched.
I had a dozen years to act before starting a family, then found that motherhood dwarfed everything else. Once or twice a year, I take a project that appeals to me for its redeeming social value.
