I think something about high school students being snobby about how much they have or don't have is particularly absurd because it's not theirs. It's their parents'. So to feel quite good about yourself because you've got the fancy house and car doesn't make any sense - you didn't earn any of that.
I love movies, but sometimes I think it's better for actresses not to be total cinephiles. You have to be able to do the work at some point; you can't be totally starstruck. 'I can't believe it's Woody Allen!' You have to get past that.
One of the things that happens when you write characters - and maybe this is my own sentimentality - is that I always find I have an instinct to protect them.
I've never worked on anything that I haven't in some way enjoyed.
I didn't know the city at all, but I was so happy to be in New York I cried. I was so excited.
I had dreams, but I didn't have the sense that they would necessarily work out. They seemed very far-fetched.
Getting bad reviews or doing something that's not great is also really good for you as an actor. It also makes me feel as an actor that I've earned my stripes a bit.
I think as an actress, I prefer having a character on the page. It allows you to be more invested in actually creating a whole person. It's easier when you're not trying to come up with your next line on the spot.
We would go down to Riverside, California, which is very poor now, but that's where my grandfather grew up. He grew up during the Depression in Riverside.
I live in New York, and I love New York as well, but I think Los Angeles is a place where if you have the right person with you, there are all these little worlds that you would never guess by just looking at the exterior of what the city is.
The economy is rough. I think that affects everyone from big filmmakers to tiny filmmakers.
In terms of sheer pleasure, Tom Stoppard was very big for me because he is so funny and so smart, and it felt delicious reading him.
I think being attracted to mistakes is one of the things that film can capture in a way that theater can't. Film can capture a moment of spontaneous life that will never be captured again.
Sacramento is where I grew up, so I felt like it had not been given its proper due in cinema.
Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.
I'm so interested in taking tropes from other movies and putting them on something where it doesn't belong.
The transition from tiny movies to less tiny movies to really big movies has been actually quite seamless in a lot of ways as far as my experience of acting in them.
I'm all for the banalities of life and humiliation and everyday tragedies, but I also think people have big moments, and they have bigness in them.
I think that people in their 20s actually aren't given enough credit for their ambition.
Working is not instantly rewarding. It's a long process, and it's much easier to just feed whatever dopamine cycles exist in your brain in instant gratification ways. I get it; I do it.
