I have been working since I was 14, nonstop.

I`ve sung my whole life. I`ve taken lots of voice lessons and I love to sing. But I`ve never really sung professionally at all.

The age I`m at now, you go from being a young girl to suddenly you blossom into a woman. You ripen, you know? And then you start to rot.

I don`t live a very posh life. There are no drivers waiting or people doing everything for me. I pretty much live like a normal person. . . . It`s not good to have a life without responsibilities, you know?.

I love observing people.

I am scared of becoming a mother.

I`ve been spending this last month trying to find four outfits to wear to the different premieres of The Two Towers. It`s hard work.

When I was pregnant. I exercised and was healthy, but it was also the first time since I was 14 that I wasn`t on a diet.

I don`t think I`m particularly beautiful at all.

Sure, my childhood was unusual. All these eccentric, wild people frequented our home: rock stars, drag queens, models, bikers, freaks. But I was not this little rich girl. My mom and I lived in an apartment.

All my boys make me laugh.

Working with Bernardo Bertolucci was one of the greatest highlights of my whole life. It was such an incredible opportunity for me.

I love my dad, although I`m definitely critical of him sometimes, like when his pants are too tight. But I love him so much and I try to be really supportive of him.

Casey Affleck is a really good friend of mine. I know Casey a lot better than I know Ben, even though Ben and I have worked together a lot.

I don`t think a lot of really good films get seen.

Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.

Life excites me-just little, normal, everyday things. Getting out of bed. Getting dressed. Making food. I find it all exciting.

I think it`s healthy for couples to be away from each other for short periods.

There is no definition of beauty, but when you can see someone`s spirit coming through, something unexplainable, that`s beautiful to me.

I`m not perfect at all.

I cried on my 18th birthday. I thought 17 was such a nice age. You`re young enough to get away with things, but you`re old enough, too.

I love to go shopping at Target. They have so much stuff there, you can buy almost anything, it`s really amazing.

Oh, my God, this amazing cool breeze is coming through my window and the sun is shining. I`m happy.

I was in New Zealand for a long time and preparing for fight sequences - all of these kind of elaborate things. And the more I did that stuff the further we were getting away from why they cast me and what was true of Arwen. And we all realized that. . And we went back into the book and into the appendix. And . . reshaped it. I think originally that, when they were looking at this character, they wanted her to be a strong character. She is a strong character, but . . maybe they thought, "Oh, well if she`s a fighter she`s strong." And over time they realized that you don`t have to put a sword in a woman`s hand to make her seem tough. That`s little actual makeup of who Arwen is, and her sheer will and strength and love for this man was strong enough.

My mom was so amazing. She was a singer and she`d been a model so she had all these beautiful clothes and makeup, and in the bathroom all her jewelry was pinned to the wall...it was more than a little girl could ever dream of! When she went out, she would always say, "Don`t get into my stuff!" and the first thing I would do was go mad dressing up.

There were times when I would get mad at him (Viggo Mortensen) because he would push me harder. There was a weekend when I got really sick and had a horrible flu, and that was my one and only day to sleep and recover and not work. We were supposed to go horseback riding together and I cancelled it because I wasn`t feeling well, and Viggo gave me a really hard time about it. So I went, and it was one of the greatest days of my life. It was actually the one time, while I was riding, that I really broke through to the other side with the canter and becoming more comfortable on the horse. I had a beautiful day and am incredibly grateful to Viggo for pushing me further. He taught me so much about that, about really being willing to submit and submerge yourself into making the film and the character work.

It`s cool to be compared to her [Elizabeth Taylor], but honestly, who gives a damn?

I don`t live a very posh life. There are no drivers waiting or people doing everything for me. I pretty much live like a normal person. . . . It`s not good to have a life without responsibilities, you know?

Life excites me. I`m not talking about appearing in movies or doing interviews, but just little, normal, everyday things. Getting out of bed. Getting dressed. Making food. I find it all exciting, you know?

Clothes have become too important and films are saturated with fashion. So you find yourself wearing designer clothes that aren`t relevant to your character. I`m always so intrigued by Christopher Guest and his movies, like Best in Show (2000) and A Mighty Wind (2003). He hires the actors and they all come up with the story and the concept, improvise. And they are all responsible for their own hair and make-up. They buy their own clothes, are in control of creating their characters. I would love to do that.

Subtlety is my favourite thing in cinema. It lets you dream. When everything is on the nail and on show, it leaves no questions in your mind. I find that so boring.

When I did Stealing Beauty (1996), I was just a kid. I`d done a couple of movies, but I`d never been to an acting class in my life. But what I took away from it more than anything was the sense that, even though I was the central character, it was my job to get completely lost in the film. I had a real awareness of Bernardo Bertolucci as a filmmaker, not just a director, painting a canvas in which I was just one element.

I`ve been told that if I`d lose weight I`d have more work, but I refuse to submit myself to those standards. To the rest of the world, I`m slim, and I like the way I am.

[on playing Arwen in "Lord of the Rings":] It wasn`t until I came back home after such a long time away that I realized how much hype there was about this. I get to play someone 3,000 years old. I`m 23, so that`s quite an acting challenge.

{About her favorite smell] Those smells that remind me of home. I can smell my dad [Steven Tyler] from a mile away. I can smell it whenever he`s worn my clothes. He has this ambery smell that just melts into him.

I have these slumber parties with my father and when we can`t sleep we stay up all night trading beauty tips. He knows all about the good creams and masks.