You get held to a high standard, almost an unmaintainable standard, in the public eye that you don't even come close to touching.
I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make.
I guess I'm motivated by the fear of failure to some degree and knowing what can happen when you don't do things the way you need to do them to have success.
When you do anything creative, you really have to live entirely in that world. I think my ability to do that is what makes me such a bad dinner guest. I'm always looking over someone's shoulder, taking in stuff around the room, immersed in the world of whatever I'm writing about, and keeping the characters completely in my head.
If I had even the tiniest scrap of advice to give to a young actor who was figuring out how to audition, I would say don't memorize the script... The reality about auditions is that 98 percent of the results has to do with what you are, not with what you did in the audition.
Anytime you join a show that's been successful, there's a certain responsibility. And a lot of anxiety that, you know, you're bringing the character to life, respecting the show and doing your part. So that you are not the weak link in the chain.
One of the great things about stargazing is that it's immediately at hand for so many people. You know, you could get into scuba diving or bird watching, but the stars are always up there.
With contemporary music, you automatically get connected. It connects you to the emotion of the characters.
No one knows who I am in Australia. They don't even know I am Australian, because 'The Secret Circle' is on in Australia, and I'm sure everyone's like, 'Oh, she's American. She's from, like, North Carolina.' Like, nobody knows me in Australia, I'm just telling you.
Actors are divas, and we all make too much noise and complain too much, so if you don't do that, it makes you rather exceptional, apparently.
There's two parts of leadership. You've got to be a good leader - you've got to be somebody that people want to emulate and care about the other people. But the other guys that you have have to accept their leadership. They have to respond to it. That's the chemistry that you never know how that is going to happen.
You should enter a ballpark the way you enter a church.
I'm a firm believer if you do the right thing, the American people will notice.
On 'Dawson's Creek,' those kids were supposed to be outsider kids - you know, wrong-side-of-the-track kids, weirdo kids. And I just felt like there's no universe out there where Katie Holmes isn't the prom queen, hottest girl in school.
I always walk up the escalator on the Tube, and I live in a house with a lot of stairs, and that's good exercise, but you need more than that.
Everyone loves the seventies because that's when movies were character-based, and you saw great characters and you saw very interesting filmmaking. There are interesting movies being made now, but it's harder and harder to make them.
With iPhones, nobody has an excuse for writer's block. If you're at Whole Foods getting your green tea extract and you have a melody, you just drop it into your voice memo and save it for later.
The next time you need to win someone over to your way of thinking, try nodding your head as you speak. People unconsciously mirror the body language of those around them in order to better understand what other people are feeling.
I read real books. On paper. You know, those printed books? I feel like this is the last thing I do to support my industry. I think they smell great, too.
I can't tell you how much everyone has worked so hard for me, as well as myself.
Find something that makes you happy and go for it.
I always thought I'd eventually learn how to draw really well, and despite constant evidence to the contrary, I just kept on trying. If you're too good at anything, you don't have to think about the process, whereas I feel like I spend my life with my head under the bonnet, trying to understand how everything works.
Even when you are playing someone who is real, you get their mannerisms and you get their little quirks, but, it still has to be something inside of you that connects with the role, or else you will not be any good.
I'm a lot more productive in an actual office. I love being around our other editors, and going there every day alleviates some of the guilt that I think many self-employed people feel when you know you could always be working from your laptop at home. I feel so relaxed there, while completely engaged and inspired.
One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.
When you are young you don't always realise how full of doubts everybody is.
The worst thing for an actor is to be stuck in one kind of thing. But if you're not in people's faces all the time, you can lose traction. And that affects the choice of things you get offered.
The problem with touring isn't the traveling and the shows, it's the vegetal state you get into.
At one point in time or another, everyone's an outcast, and you have to deal with those sort of issues in society. Especially for teenage kids, I don't think there's anyone that's really been through childhood and not been an outcast in one way or another.
I think there's just an inherent burden of being alive and being a woman. No man would ever admit that, but I think women know it, which is: You know more than men, you know more than most people you're dealing with every day, and you know that's it up to you to make things move forward, and you get paid half as much, but you just do it.
Over at Marvel, I have a five-part series coming out very soon. The books or chapters will appear weekly. It's called '5 Ronin' and features some iconic Marvel heroes as you've never seen them.
You can't just dream about what you want and leave things to chance. You have to get it yourself.
I think you have to have a sense of humor about every movie that you're doing. Your character needs to be relatable in a way that, even when you're doing the most bizarre things, sometimes a bit of tongue in cheek is necessary to keep up the believability of it.
If you are an open-minded and tolerant Muslim, you have enough knowledge to question the moves of a Christian governor or even the Ku Klux Klan. They called themselves a Christian organization, but how is that possible since Jesus didn't do that?
You learn that the interest is in what you don't yet know and that theories evolve. But we nonetheless have progress and improved knowledge over time.
Although a lot of pain for a little screen time; Shaving legs, waxing eyebrows, high heels, trying to put on a bra, losing weight because women's clothes are SO revealing - Ladies you have my respect.
