I don`t need much when I work. I don`t need friends, I don`t need a lover. I don`t need a lot of strokes. I just need to know what`s going on.

Hollywood is run by men who are big on vulnerability.

As a measure of acting skills, film can be very deceptive.

I`ve never found that it jars to go back and forth.

I used to go home at night and just shake, because I had no idea that`s what acting was gonna be.

Suddenly, I realised: this was what I wanted to do. I didn`t know how to do it; I just knew acting felt right.

Other women see all the women I play as separate people. Men say, She always plays tough, willful types; strong women who are also vulnerable.

Domesticity has to mean nesting. Otherwise, six months go by, and you don`t know where your underwear is.

I`m not looking at money, percentage points or grosses. This is my life, you know? To me, every day matters.

I hate it when people say, Mary Elizabeth, this may be hell, but the movie is going to be sooo good.

You`re always going to think, Should I have done every single thing I was offered? Should I maybe have taken more familiar kinds of roles?

Some stars like to hide behind the whole idea of acting. But really good actors are not hiding at all. They`re not afraid to be disliked, to be a little unsavoury.

I almost went home this summer to do Stephen Sondheim`s Sunday In the Park. But for personal reasons, I needed to plant myself here.

I`ve worked with leading men so worried about losing their charm that they were always winking to the audience.

I do need to be told when I`m going wrong. No one`s acting can be an exact, 100 percent science.