I don't think, there's no possible way for me, anyway, to play a character that I haven't found some sort of sublime compassion for and I related to Deborah on a way that almost, initially, almost in a way maybe someone in the audience might.

People don't know this, but early in your career, you don't just glide on to The Tonight Show.

Really it was the first time in my life that I recognised that acting is, I'm just going to say it, I am an artist, I have to do this, I have to do this.

I'm not a huge fan of my work.

I have always loathed working out.

At one point, I had 14 pairs of golf shoes.

Sometimes, I feel that Manhattan in particular has gotten really tame and gentrified or something.

I don't think, there's no possible way for me, anyway, to play a character that I haven't found some sort of sublime compassion for and I related to Deborah on a way that almost, initially, almost in a way maybe someone in the audience might.

I dress up for awards, but only if somebody else is going to pay for the clothes. And shop for them, too!

Well, I think again, the worst part of it was just leading up to it, before we got on set, at least for me... dreading this idea that I was just going to suck and I really had strong feelings about that. I just didn't want to be that weak link.

Shopping turns me off.

Yes, I guess I am bi-coastal.

Acting doesn't feel good. It's not comfortable to feel all this stuff, it's not.

But I've never looked at myself as being particularly funny.

The one thing I think you must do is, as painful as it is as a parent, is listen.

I've been in a gym probably nine days of my life.

And I thought, you know, I have to say that maybe the whacked out mother is my new favorite role, but I don't want to just do it and become Nurse Ratchett.

I'm not quite ready for a no makeup movie.

I just mean it's very difficult for me to watch my work, in some ways, because I am critical of what I didn't get across or I thought I was making one point.

Well what I will tell you is for this movie, I got into probably the best shape of my life.

But I can tell you that the New York that I see now is not the New York that we grew up in. It's not 1973.

First of all, returning from motherhood, I was looking for something lighter, and I wasn't as much attracted to Kate as I was to the relationship between the two people.

If I swim in the ocean, I have a shark thought. Not a bad one, but just a little one.

I was desperate to go back to New York and when 9/11 happened, I feared moving to the bulls-eye and that was very hard because I have a lot of family there and I really had to question what I didn't like about this community.

It was just this interesting, my first, the first time you hear your child in any way criticise you. It's the worst review of your life and it's really relieving to find out that they don't know what they're saying.

I live by a hill. I began walking it and then I began jogging it and then I began sprinting it.

Jim Brooks is a very powerful director and it was a lot of intense work.

I don't mean to be presumptuous that men don't feel this, I don't mean this, but I found that when my child was born, my first child, it felt like my heart broke.

Well, I don't find glamour and clothing relevant.

It's kind of fun to be sexy.

I was one of the most brilliant liars as a child.

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.