It's a real gift to work with my sister. We obviously have such a shorthand communicating with each other that it makes the process easier. And from growing up together and watching so many films together, we ended up with pretty similar taste.
There's shorthand that happens when you work with someone you know where you can almost finish each other's sentences. There's just a certain back and forth that becomes much easier with someone you've worked with for so long.
A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.
When I was a kid I feel lonely, I have not many friends. If you make a movie, then you can work with different kinds of people and make different kinds of friend. That's very important to me.
Some people say to be an actor you've got to die to do it. I think it's healthy if you think, 'I'll do it if it works, and if I don't, I can do something else.' That way seems to work for me.
I was never an ingenue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at yo...
The roles I was lucky enough to get were real stretches for me: usually a character who was older, or a little weird, or whatever. And it was hard, not just for the lack of work but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.
You think when you start getting jobs that it'll get easier, but that's the biggest lie ever. It gets harder. You have to put in more work. I wish it were the casting couch days because it'd be a lot easier!
If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that.
Fifteen years ago, I suffered a stroke, which caused me to lose my speech. Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back? I work with a speech therapist twice a week.
People always tell me, 'Don't work so much', but I can't help it. I feel like all the things I've done are important to get to this adult stage and now I'm getting all these adult offers, so it's working.
I feel like everyone directs their own career according to their taste, what they migrate to emotionally and what kind of artists they want to work with. And I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can wait six months for a project that really i...
It's a luxury being able to work every day in the streets of Manhattan. It doesn't get much cooler than that. When you move to New York, that's exactly what you dream of. And I'm doing it.
When I finished my residency in New Orleans, I went to L.A. where I would work as a doctor during the day, and then at night I would actually go to The Improv and do standup, all the while kind of cultivating my comedy resume.
I don't know if there's ever been a female-driven film or a male-driven film. I don't believe in that. I believe a film is a film - a movie can only work if everything about the film works.
It never ceases to surprise me, the people I get to work with. I'm in a French film with Sandrine Bonnaire? I adore Sandrine Bonnaire. I'm doing a picture for Robert Redford? The Sundance Kid? I have to pinch myself sometimes.
My junior year, I was in a play at school and five days before opening night, I still didn't know my lines. Opening night was a disaster. I was so embarrassed. The director made me work backstage for the rest of the performance.
When you grow up around it, I just watched my father work really hard. He wasn't around as much as I would have liked. And when I grew up, I understood why.
I think people do work too much. I've never been able to understand the whole 'make hay while the sun shines' thing. Either I want to work or I don't want to work.
I did a little theatre work after that and the following year I got another part in a television series. Then it was almost to the end of the year before I got more work. That was coming to terms with the reality of the vocation I had chosen.
That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.
