People are so fearful about opening themselves up. All you want to do is to be able to connect with other people. When you connect with other people, you connect with something in yourself. It makes you feel happy. And yet it's so scary - it makes people feel vulnerable and unsafe.Collection: Relationship
After 'Muriel's Wedding,' I first went to America, and I was sent all these scripts about fat girls overcoming hurdles. Something in me knew not to go down that road, even if it was a good script.Collection: Wedding
I don't mind where I work, it's really nice to be able to travel around and taste the flavours of different countries.Collection: Travel
The better you know yourself, the better your relationship with the rest of the world.Collection: Relationship
I just want to find some inner peace, and I think I'm getting there, slowly but surely.Collection: Peace
The potential strength of female friendship and the bonds that can be formed, especially over a lifelong relationship, is very profound.Collection: Strength
I wish I had more patience.Collection: Patience
My plan is to have no plan. If you know what plan you have, life has its own ideas and will take you in any direction it pleases. So my idea about life is to just be open to it and to go with the flow and go with my gut.
I think that the Japanese culture is one of the very few cultures left that is its own entity. They're just so traditional and so specific in their ways. It's kind of untouched, it's not Americanized.
Independent films have a certain freedom about them - there isn't so much at stake in terms of money. I think they're more interesting because they're not watered down to appeal to the masses. They tend to have a unique voice.
To tell you the truth, my father says I came out of the womb literally singing and dancing, as though there was a spotlight on me. When I ask what I was like when I was little, they just say 'loud.'
I want variety. I want versatility. Otherwise, I'm wasting the opportunity of being an actor, which is all about variation and change.
I'm not Buddhist, but I am drawn to it because it seems the most beneficial of organised religions and the most compassionate.
I'm very happy with my lot. I like the variety I get. You don't want to spend your life repeating yourself. It's true of any kind of artist, you want to explore as wide and far as you can go, so that's what I've been trying to do.
I'm a fan of music, some rock music. But I like many types of music. But I suppose a kind of longstanding love of specific bands would be Radiohead, Wilco, Neil Young, Tom Waits, REM.
In a lot of films, forever it's been boy-meets-girl, and thank God for films like - I know it's going to sound ridiculous - 'Frozen.' I was so excited for my daughter to be able to watch a love story between two sisters instead of some stupid prince.
We were just covered in dirt the whole time. It was so hot - and that was in winter. I can not imagine what it's like in summer and how the people who actually live out there survive.
There are actors who are really fantastically talented at being natural on screen and appearing to be themselves, but I like the challenge of becoming somebody else.
I don't try to live the life of my character but I think it's inevitable that there is some carry-over into your life.
I kind of realized I could sing, so I played around with that for a while. And that led me to acting in itself, which I came more passionate about by the age of 15.
I grew up watching a lot of American television and so the American sound has been in my psyche somehow for a long time and is quite familiar and so that does make it easier.
Also, I think having a musicality about me that helps in identifying different things in languages and getting them right.
I think being the conventional beauty is limiting, so I'm glad I'm not that. If I looked different, I wouldn't have the great opportunities I've had.
When I look at a character, I never look at the size of the role. I always look at the whole person, no matter how much they're featured in the movie.
I think it's important to relax in general. I don't try to save up my relaxing for one month period of the year; it's kind of a daily practice that I've tried to remain aware of.
I love holidays. It's such a wonderful time for the whole family to be together and not have to worry about schedules and that kind of thing.
Whether it's a movie I'm in or not, if there's a good movie, and it's low budget, and you know everyone's done it just because they were passionate about it and they cared for it, if it has any kind of audience, it's just a wonderful outcome.
I think when I was younger, I used to sort of long to be a part of films that were really gritty and hardcore in a way.