What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? The answer is always creativity; the answer is always art.

I've been given lots of great advice, in my life. As an actor, just being as honest and as present as you can be.

I have a certain curiosity for life that drives me and propels me forward.

I have, in some ways, saved characters that have been marginalized by society by playing them - and having them still have dignity and still survive, still get through it.

I was never the ingenue or the pretty girlfriend of Tom Cruise in a movie. I didn't have that career, so I don't have to compete on that level.

I saw leaving college as an opportunity to do something different with my life. I always thought that becoming an academic was going to be my path.

But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.

I make movies about people in spiritual crisis because it's a way for me to spend the time, the energy, the focus and the obsession to come to terms with my own spiritual crisis.

People are always surprised when I say that I'm an atheist.

I was a literature major in college and that was my thing, books.

There is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God.

You hold all of our futures in your hands. So you better make it good.

I'd like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.

Cruelty might be very human and very cultural, but it is not acceptable and it is not an option.

People say as a woman actor your career is over at 40. But then they told me I would never work again after I was 16.

It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.

I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.