It's easy to play a bad girl: You just do everything you've been told not to do, and you don't have to deal with the consequences, because it's only acting.

I'm a more mature actress now.

If I wasn't doing this, I'd be in school studying political science or socioeconomic something. I love visiting different cultures and finding out how they make up a society.

My parents divorced when I was born, and my mother is a political science professor, like a feminist Mormon, which is sort of an oxymoron.

Go big or go home. Because it's true. What do you have to lose?

I'm self-confident and not afraid to speak my mind.

When I worked with Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies, she told me, You need a plan B, because when you have six months to a year off, you can go nuts. You need to have another focus.

In my first movie, That Night, with Juliette Lewis, I had a scene with two other girls where we applied a cream to our chests to make our breasts grow. I was 10.

TV can be a long commitment.

There is definitely something sexy about a girl with an attitude and a pair of leather pants.

The letters from jail are always disconcerting.

We didn't have a TV in the living room and all my friends thought we were kind of weird. When they'd come over, my mom wanted to talk to them about current events.

When you get to your mid-20s, you start to feel responsibilities for the things that you do and the people around you. It's a cool age.

My mom is this liberal, feminist, Mormon powerhouse. I just love her to death.

I don't care who you are, everyone has been through it - that feeling where you'd like to be someone else.

I remember hitting Sarah Michelle Gellar with a right hook during my first week on the job. It was awful. They usually pair actors with stunt doubles to avoid things like that.

My mother would take groups of students to different countries and always brought us along, so by the time I was 10, I had been to Russia, China, Nicaragua and several other countries.

I was raised in Boston by three older brothers and a very strong and empowering single mom.

For the longest time, I thought I was a boy. I really did. I wore boys' clothes, played tag football.

I don't let guys do hickeys. That's like a dog marking his territory or something.

It's easy to play a bad girl: You just do everything you've been told not to do, and you don't have to deal with the consequences, because it's only acting.

Each year, I say I'm going to go to school next year. It's inevitable that I'll end up getting my education.

Growing up I was as big a tomboy as you can get.

I have nieces and nephews that I love hanging out with, and they think I'm the biggest goof on the planet.

I wake up and play a different person every day. Playing all these different characters and trying to figure out who your true authentic self is at the core of that as you're playing all these different roles, and man, that self-awareness starts to come into effect. And you start to see who you really are.

There are a lot of actresses out there who are the girl next door. I relate more to characters who have an edge.

When I worked with Jamie Lee Curtis in 'True Lies', she told me, You need a plan B, because when you have six months to a year off, you can go nuts. You need to have another focus.

You know, I really am probably one of the sweetest, most sensitive people you'll ever meet.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.

It's a living, breathing thing, acting.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.