Altman works in such an interesting way, letting things occur in the film even if he didn't particularly plan them.

I was utilized because I have a certain face that works well in cinema, and I'm used to making myself look as good as possible.

Children can only take so much, and they deal with it however they can.

The status quo and the media is doing everything it can to fry children's brains and make them grow up maladjusted.

I'd never been content in America.

I'm not in the advertising business, but I think it would be very nice if people went to see the film Hamlet, because it was made with love and integrity.

My family said that I wanted to act even when I was a child living on a tea plantation in the jungle in India.

I think I've got something when I'm onscreen, but that's nothing to do with acting or talent.

I started noticing how stained the pavements are in London. The pavements in Beverly Hills aren't used; in London, they're used for everything. It doesn't matter how much they're cleaned, they still reflect light.

I basically put myself into directors' hands and let them tell me what to do, and the more they told me what to do, the more I liked it.

I never will have peace of mind. I'm not constructed that way. Some things in life can be horrible.

It takes me time to realize things; I'm a speedy person but a slow thinker.

I regret that I wasn't the kind of person who could enjoy celebrity. It embarrassed me too much.

It's quite hard for me being an actress because I actually don't like attention.

When I came back to Britain, I realized that I was no longer a very young woman. I had to meet my new consciousness, my new age, with roles that reflected it somewhat.

Altman works in such an interesting way, letting things occur in the film even if he didn't particularly plan them.

I see stardom very clearly as a construct that's been created in order to sell things.

I don't think I would have been a good mother. Being a parent brings immense responsibility. It's a Herculean task. It would be almost too much for me.

Early on, I found the attention completely embarrassing. I'd cringe if I saw my picture on the cover of a magazine.

Some people enjoy celebrity. I admire those who do, because if you're going to go through it, you might as well enjoy it.

The little things that made up the fabric of the first six years of my life were suddenly ripped away, and I didn't have anyone around me who loved me. Not one single person.

Happiness is the absence of suffering. I think it's an interesting way of looking at it. I think the absence of suffering exists very rarely in the world we live in.

I remember becoming aware of women's issues and inequality. It became glaringly clear to me when I was living in America that women are regarded as less intelligent than men.

Most of the time I spent in America, I was having a love affair with some American or other. I was just passing through but stayed because of these chaps.

There were some films I refused because the feminist aspect was a bit wonky.

As I became very defined in my personal politics, I turned down some films that I slightly regret now; I'm not going to say what they were.

I did things like Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait. I don't know what those films were about. The women I played in them were not very empowered.

I've never quite understood why people marry; marriage is just an invented structure.

Men don't want any responsibility, and neither do I.

I was born with a need to be the center of attention, and, of course, you're the center of the world when you're acting.

Living in America, I became aware of many issues and went through a period of politicization.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

If he didn't fall in love he would have never come back near the end of the film. Because, what man is going to dishonor himself so that he comes back in front of the man that took a woman away from him... and warns her to save her life?

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist.

I have a movie coming out called Spun, which will be at the Toronto Film Fest.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.