I've always thought of myself as more of a character actress. I've tried to do different things, but I've always been under the radar and that's how I like it. I've been really blessed to work this long and I just hope I continue to get better and better and better and better.

You see someone on the street wearing an outfit and then it's on the cover of a magazine. I love. But, you know, I'm Australian, so I'm not too flashy or glitzy.

The British are so funny. It's like they can't believe I lived in Hackney. 'You could live in Bondi Beach. Why would you want to live in 'Ackney?' But Hackney's fantastic. I'm serious. There are so many artists there. I loved the markets, the parks, the pubs, the diversity. It was a cultural melting-pot.

I've always thought of myself as more of a character actress. I've tried to do different things, but I've always been under the radar and that's how I like it. I've been really blessed to work this long and I just hope I continue to get better and better and better and better.

Where I am now, you're very much at everybody else's mercy. You have no control over your career in a lot of ways. It's just important to know what your own goals are, because that's empowering.

Being an actor is mostly about rejection and being out of work. It was a fast lesson in all of that stuff.

I loved performing; I was always trying to impress my siblings by being a clown. I think that came from being the runt of the litter.

I tend to spiral out of control if I'm not working. I get panicked and don't know what to do with myself.

I often do very serious roles, but really I am a big clown.

I'm ambitious but I'm not particularly competitive. I'll try to get roles, as I think it's healthy to go for things, but... I think there's too much competition between women already. It's important to have female solidarity and support each other and other actresses.

They think I'm depressed because I look serious in photos. It's usually because I'm just nervous. But I've stopped dressing for other people. If I think I look good, that's the most important thing.

TV is very much a producer and writer or creator-driven machine in the States. And I'm the kind of actor that needs to be pushed and have someone on my case a little bit, so I suffer from that.

All forms of contact are good: letters, parcels, e-mails - I've been trying to get a Webcam for my computer, but I'm such a Luddite.

Art, a book, a painting, a song, can definitely inspire change, whether it's a small change or a big change but you know there's novels I've read or a scene in a film that I've seen where I definitely inspired something and made a change or addressed an issue in my life or done something cliche like make a phone call.

At a certain point, I got into the older, cooler crowd, and they listened to hip-hop. I was desperately trying to fit in.

Here in L.A. the standard of beauty is kind of ridiculous. I want to be doing this when I'm in my fifties and sixties and this isn't what I'm going to look like.

I liked the Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest and Cypress Hill.

I see myself more as a character actress than a celebrity.

I think its important to keep an element of fear about yourself because it makes you appreciate the jobs.

I used to go to rave parties, too, but I was never savvy with techno.

I'm in love with the city. You can impress an Australian with a city, but you can't impress them with a beach.

I'm the youngest of four, and I'm always the clown - making the jokes, wanting attention.

I've already started saying that I'm 30 when I'm still 29. That way, I'm already there.

It's important to have female solidarity and support each other and other actresses.

My parents were so relaxed by the time I was growing up that I got away with a lot more.

The British are so funny.

There's a lot of intensity when you're on a set. And then it just goes away and no one's giving you attention or flooding you with compliments.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

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.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

I just kind of understood it, and I threw my love for others and love for life into the character, and was having a blast. I loved playing Dharma. I loved it!

I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow.

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.