This is what the media does with women. You try to divide and conquer women so you can intimidate and victimise them. This is why they don't make movies where a lot of women get to be on set together. It's about dividing.
I'm not taking jobs anymore where I'm getting paid a quarter of what the male co-star is being paid. I'm not allowing that in my life.
What I do now, when I'm taking on a film, I always ask about the fairness of the pay. I ask what they're offering me in comparison to the guy. I don't care about how much I get paid; I'm in an industry where we're overcompensated for the work we do.
If you want me in your film, do a favored-nation clause. Don't determine my worth based on what's left over.
The power of 'no' means you're educating people in how to treat you.
I can't tell you how many incredible directors I long to work with, but then I look at their IMDb page, and they haven't made a single movie about a woman.
We have grown up watching women be used as props on a man's journey. It's not our fault that that's what we saw as children. But we need to acknowledge that and do better.
We know in our society, women are valued for their sexual desirability and not necessarily for what they have to say.
My grandmother took me to a play, and... there was a little girl on stage. And as soon as I saw her on stage, I thought, 'This is my job'... I was probably, like, 7 or 8. I was very young... It was 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'.
I was a dramatic kid. I remember, I was very young, and once I knew what I wanted to do I, like, created a theater company, and I would direct, and we would sell lemonade to buy props.
I went to public school, and I didn't do well in school. And it wasn't until, actually, I got into school at Juilliard - it was the first time in my life that I thought, 'Oh, maybe I'm not stupid,' because I was so inspired and passionate about what I was learning, and it was the first time in my life I had felt that.
My grandmother came with me when I moved out to New York. She stayed with me for a week. I was, you know, living in the dorm. The first year, I had a lot of anxiety, and, I remember, my teachers kept saying I had so much jaw tension.
I understood the importance of doing an Aaron Sorkin film. He's a political filmmaker.
As an actor, I have a lot of fear, thinking that if I speak my mind, or something that feels like it deviates from the norm as a woman, am I going to be made to disappear in my industry?
I find it very interesting: when 90 percent of the critics that review films are men, how is that helpful when trying to create stories from a feminine point of view?
If someone doesn't want to hire me because they think I'm too vocal, fine. I will do a play. I will always find a job. Let them try to get me out of this industry. I am not going to be silenced!
If I can help create empathy and balance in society, I'm going to do whatever I can to tell stories that subconsciously create that.
I think when you congratulate yourselves for diversity, that means nothing's really changed.
For the longest time, people would say to me that I didn't feel very modern, that I seemed from another time.
I'm inspired by antiques. I look at things that have a wink to the past but are also reinterpreted in some way and made to feel modern... and maybe that's what I am.
