It was total naivety that got me to Hollywood. I thought it was going to happen straight away. I told myself 'give it 5 years, there's no way I'll be here after that if it doesn't happen'. Cut to ten years later!

We're so afraid of death in our culture, but I think if we understand it better, then we'll appreciate the life we have more.

Pain is such an important thing in life. I think that as an artist you have to experience suffering.

Mum put me in drama classes when I was about 14. I'd been going on about it for some time, so maybe it was a way to shut me up.

It's always nerve-racking to take off your clothes on film. But doing it with a woman felt safer than with a man. You know you can say, 'Don't grab me there: That's where my cellulite is'!

I find myself gravitating towards drama. It interests me. In the books I read, the paintings I like, it's always the darker stuff.

I'm not this dark, twisted person. Yes, I have my demons and this is my way of exorcising them. It gets them out - and better out than in.

The biggest place I look for validation is from my mother. That's the little girl in me that will never grow up.

I'm a tomboy now. I always wanted to fit in with my brother's group, so I climbed trees and played with lead soldiers. But I'm a woman's woman. I never understood women who don't have woman friends.

Oh, I'm definitely a wild child.

I had gotten to a place where I truly believed everything I was called: 'not sexy,' 'not funny,' 'too intense,' desperate.' All those labels they gave me, I took them because there wasn't a trace of my true self left.

There's a set of rules out there somewhere that says it all ends by 40. I hope to be able to defy that because I truly love my work.

It was total naivety that got me to Hollywood. I thought it was going to happen straight away. I told myself 'give it 5 years, there's no way I'll be here after that if it doesn't happen'. Cut to ten years later!

I always love being in the company of women. It's all about good conversation and great wine.

There's a lot of skeletons in my closet, but I know what they're wearing. I'm not gonna act all ashamed of it.

There was a time I was very much blaming the way I felt on L.A, that it was a vacuum of creativity, of humor or anything organic, and I was really angry at the place. But then today I feel completely different - I love L.A.!

If I have to produce movies, direct movies, whatever to change the way Hollywood treats older women, I'll do it. If I have to bend the rules, I will. If I have to break them, I will.

Whatever is said about roles drying up, I intend to keep working. Certainly now the roles couldn't be more interesting - playing mothers, divorcees. I think it's going to be exciting to play a mother of teenagers. The longer your life, the deeper it gets.

That's one of the lucky things about getting the success later on. I know how I want to dress, I know what kind of house I want to live in, I just know more about myself, and that's true about the roles I want to play and what parts of myself I want to express. You're just more in touch with yourself.

You won't find me in a romantic comedy. Those movies don't speak to me. People don't come to talk to me about those scripts, because they probably think I'm this dark, twisted, miserable person.

You have to make peace with yourself. The key is to find the harmony in what you have.

When I had dark hair I definitely felt that I was more anonymous.

On set is where I feel comfortable. The red carpet stuff, talking about the film, explaining your own life, it doesn't come naturally. It's all necessary stuff I suppose but it's not my strength.

As much as my kids keep me young, they also have the reverse effect when I don't have the energy.

I know it's silly, but I still think I'm 28.

I'm not sure why I still think of myself as 28 - maybe that's the point where you start growing up, and then you just feel the same for evermore.

When I was about 14, my family emigrated from England to Australia, and we decided to stop in Bali on the way through.

We all respect sincerity in our friends and acquaintances, but Hollywood is willing to pay for it.

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.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

I've always thought John Travolta is one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever produced.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide.

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.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

I remember having to take detours around the Hollywood sign to avoid having to see this grotesque poster of myself on Sunset Boulevard.

Hollywood is kind of a bad world.

It's so crazy in Hollywood.

I don't think I ever understood Hollywood.

I came across awful characters when I got some kind of status and came to Hollywood. Then you have directors trying to sleep with you, assuming that you will do things because of the way you dress.

Hollywood is sexist and age-ist, and that covers all the bases, I guess.

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.

Hollywood today is all about being consistent. All thinking in mainstream film business takes place in one box.

Everyone is treating it like a Hollywood story. In Madison, it's a neighborhood story.

Hollywood is what you make it; you have to choose company with care because you become what they are.

Hollywood is a world all its own.

Silence is the sure sign that you're on your way out in Hollywood.

What is the thing that Hollywood demands most? Sincerity. No place in the world will pay such a high price for this admirable trait.

If you can believe it, Hollywood wanted to change my birthdate. I was born after Valentine's Day, so they wanted to change it to February 14. A Latin lover should be born on Valentine's Day. I said no.

In Hollywood if you are not working, you are a leper. True, you are probably living in the most expensive leper colony in the world.