People who have never done theatre before, and have only worked in front of a camera, would find it very difficult, I think, to know how to command a stage and work with the logistics of being on stage. They're very different. The theatre is quite tr...
I was seeing everything through pain. I would roll out of bed and do my exercises. I had to do that to work out the remainder of the pain pills. I would drink coffee and go to the set and plunge myself so far into my work.
I constantly have anxiety about being the lead of the show. I don't talk about it because it scares me. But I've always wanted to be part of something where I could work on a character in such a big manner, and you get offered that with all the trapp...
I normally work like a vampire. Around 8 to 9 P.M., what I call 'the spirits' actually show up, and then I just go in the booth and scream on top of a track. I only sing on the mic. I don't sit down and write anything.
It's such a weird thing to try to plan a baby around a TV season. There's a three-month or four-month window in the summertime to have a baby and hang out with it a little bit before hopefully going back to work, so we were just very lucky.
I like playing a character every day. I like having something to go back to. I always enjoyed that with 'Will & Grace.' I like the camaraderie. I like having a crew that I know and I can work with every day.
Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that cha...
On so many levels, acting in film and TV is so much the sum of its parts, and somewhere in there, there's an alchemical thing that makes something happen or not - that makes something connect or not. Now, of course you want to make work that people s...
Almost six years ago, before I was given the incredible opportunity to be in 'Leaving Las Vegas,' I was going through a long period of artistic confusion. I'd spent years doing work that hadn't pushed me enough, and I was beginning to wonder if I had...
Some people may say my curved panels look like sails. Well, I am a sailor, so I guess I probably do use that metaphor in my work - though not consciously.
My background is a small town with no movie theater. So... I always pictured myself onstage. I went to acting school and learned all the skills. I left early because I did my first movie and discovered that I really loved the minimalistic work with t...
One person who has taught me a lot and inspired me a lot was Peter Falk. I was fortunate enough to have worked with him in this movie called 'Vig.' He brought my work to a place where it literally shouldn't have been for another two or three years.
When you're still, and some actors are really brilliant at that, you bring a kind of energy to you as opposed to sending the energy out. There are some actors, like Gary Cooper or Kevin Spacey, that are absolutely brilliant - Gene Hackman is another ...
In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America.
It may take hundreds of pages before you begin to get a handle on the craft of writing, and your first scripts may not work. The next five to twenty may not either. However, the ones that do work owe everything to the ones that didn't.
Some comedians tell nice jokes that you can tell to your kids. Some use bad words - they work 'blue.' If you don't want to hear a joke that's blue, you shouldn't go to a comedy club where a comedian who makes blue jokes is performing.
I consider myself an actor that tries to have as many tools as possible in the bag. And I think that includes the method, then of course it includes some improv techniques, and includes all kinds of different things, because you never know when you'r...
Midwestern people stick together. Gee willikers, they work hard. There's no glitz, no glamour. When I was a girl in Duluth, Minnesota, I used to get up early and milk cows, so I know what hard work is.
You do it for the highs, when you're totally engrossed and everything's flowing and whatever you want, you get. It's like magic. That's why you play the game. That's what it's for. That's why you work.
The University of Southern California has a wonderful social work department, and I was thrilled to find out that they have a whole veterans' initiative program there. They approached me, and I set up a scholarship that would go to a military-oriente...
I'm very, very lucky to be a working actor, but I've also been careful. I don't just take anything. 'Durham County' came to me. You have to look at the quality of work you do, and 'Durham' set the standard. I wait for things that keep me really inter...
