When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.

When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.

When I did get home this last time, we had all these plans to go out. And then we hardly stepped outside because the time together seemed too precious.

I don't think I will be less good because there's less pressure on me.

My husband. He keeps me grounded. If I were in the world on my own, it would all be much more seductive. But I'm in a relationship that has nothing to do with the film world.

You have to play the logic of a character.

During Breaking The Waves, I was on my own in a hotel room. I think I would have been impossible to live with. When you go home, you have to pretend to be the person you are at home.

It's a whole different kind of anxiety. But the great thing about doing a theatre job is that once the ball starts rolling you just have to go with it, it's inexorable.

It's an incredible privilege for an actor to look into the camera. It's like looking right into the heart of the film, and you can't take that lightly.

I was a normal, rather dutiful child. I didn't even rebel as a teenager.

I always think I am going to do my best.

I grew up without a television. It meant that I read lots of books and entertained myself.

The film Punch - Drunk Love is how you see the world when you're in love. You don't see somebody's psychological baggage necessarily, you see the person walking out of the light.

Yeah, a lot of people think I'll be a tortured nutcase when they meet me.

My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate, I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting, subtle relationship.

I think so, Silence of the Lambs was a great, suspenseful thriller and I would expect Red Dragon to be similar. And I think it's very character driven.

And it is very sexy as well: somebody says I'm taking you on a surprise date, you don't know where you are going and you can't see and then you put your hand out and there is a tiger. Amazing.

As actors, we went where we wanted to, and the camera followed us: it was like having another person in the room. There was no formal structure to the process. It was very liberating.

I've always been creative, I think.

I do think you feel a little bit like you are preying on people's lives.

I don't know what makes a marriage work. My husband and I don't have it right at all; it's very tough on him. From the outside it looks like it's all about me - I have a glorious career and he doesn't.

I have to be a lot more calculating because I'm a very private person. I actually really struggle with the attention; I'm generally a pretty shy kind of a person. So it's tough figuring out how to manage it. But there are ways of managing it, and you just have to be smart.

I sometimes feel like it's difficult for people to relate to me, until they spend, like, a day with me, and until they walk around with me in public.

I was a pretentious child. I grew up without a television. I read a lot of books and I loved Shakespeare. Still do.

In my early career I was like a goldfish. Rejection didn't affect me; I'd just forget how bad it was and keep going back for more.

Believing in God is a very intense inner struggle of mine. Its something I worry about a lot but which I dont have the answer to.

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.

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.

It always surprised me that I was getting acting work.