New York is so full of the best unemployed actors on the planet.

I think a lot of people are with the one they're meant to be with. I see it watching my parents because they've been together for so long and are still very much in love. I'm just sort of in awe of that.

I want to pick good projects, I want to work with great directors and try not to put too much pressure on myself and just read things for the story and recognize when I'm drawn to something for the right reasons and try to maintain some sanity. Sanity would be good. I'd like to have a little sanity!

During a movie, chemistry is so important, and yet they just assume actors can fake their way through it. That doesn't always work.

I've had heartbreaking auditions where they don't even look at you. You're out before you're in.

What bothers me is our culture's obsession with nudity. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. I think this overemphasis with nudity makes actors nervous. There's the worry about seeing one's body dissected, misrepresented, played and replayed on the Internet.

I'd grown up doing children's theater there, and I always imagined myself being artistic director of a children's theater company.

I love the exploration of someone who has such a different background from you. That exploration runs to compassion and to cracking yourself open and creating more understanding of how weird and amazing life is.

You want people to buy you as just about anything. So if they think that you're one thing, it's hard to slip into, you know, all these other things.

With a film, you just don't have time to build sympathy for the character. But I think we're moving away from that in TV. With TV, you have a little more leeway to allow them to rise and fall and rise again and be much more complicated beings.

With any project I work on - not just 'True Detective' - I don't feel the need just to play a strong woman. I don't want the audience to say, 'Oh, she was so strong.' I want to play characters that are flawed and interesting.

I don't really want to repeat myself. For the most part, I always want to be doing something new. But there aren't a lot of gritty roles out there for women, and they are so fun to play, everyone wants them.

I had a lovely childhood. For family holidays, we went as far as the car could take us - we would drive to Florida, even though it would take three days. I didn't know we didn't have a lot of money because there was always food on the table. I didn't have a lot of stuff, but I did figure skating for a long time, and I always had my skates.

I was 12 when it really hit me. I did children's theatre camp during the summers and played a fairy in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' The next summer, I played Clytemnestra in 'Agamemnon' and I was like, 'OK, this is amazing.'

I grew up in a very small town and didn't realise till later that I had an adventurous side. When I went to theatre school at 18, I came into my own and let loose.

It's always disappointing when your work is not received as you hope it would be.

I'm from a very close-knit family, and there was something very... I guess you could say normal, about it, and I so appreciate that. We all ate dinner together every single night, and my mom stayed at home with us. I owe a lot to my parents.

My mother's parents died when I was quite young, so I would like to be able to go back and know those people as an adult.

What I love about film is that everybody often connects to something so different, and things you couldn't anticipate when you were making the film, so you just make it as honest as possible.

When you're playing music through the streets of London at 2 o'clock in the morning, there's something so cool and magical about that. It takes you to a special place very quickly.

I always wanted pink hair.

At nine years old, I was presented an opportunity to move to Toronto to train for pairs dancing. As soon as I heard that that's what it entailed, I was out of there. It's like a past life. I hung up my skates and never looked back.

It's the messiness of life that ultimately leads you to the most interesting things. Everyone asks what you would do over, and I don't know because then you have this story to tell, and if you did everything over and made it perfect, what would you talk about?

I definitely believe that you are drawn to certain things for inexplicable reasons, but in a very powerful way. I don't know what it is exactly, but I know that things happen kind of miraculously sometimes, and so I'm willing to believe that there's something pretty magical out there.

I'm a hopeless romantic and I believe that you can find love in many different places and be very conflicted. I've discovered as I've grown up that life is far more complicated than you think it is when you're a kid. It isn't just a straightforward fairytale.

I'm not an amazing cook. But I can follow a recipe!

I always wish I could go back and see the people that I love as children.

I sort of always had an inkling towards some kind of an art form. I grew up in a very small town, and I just figure-skated. My dad played hockey and I was surrounded by sports, but it wasn't quite doing it for me. I wasn't totally fulfilled, and I did a lot of skating.

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

I think love is the through line and it's universal and it doesn't matter what period of time, time or place, or people, that's something we all connect to. That's the thin thread that I think keeps it altogether.

The craziest thing I've ever done to get a guy's attention? I admit I stalked someone. I showed up at a restaurant where I knew the guy worked, and we were actually good friends and had lost touch, and I pretended that I didn't know he worked there.

It's a compulsion. I'm always changing parts of me. Even when I was young, I wanted to change my hair color. I was so determined that I dyed my hair with Kool-Aid.

I drink maple syrup. Then I'm hyper so I just run around like crazy and work it all off.

I can be quite surprised by what makes me cry, but it's usually spiritual things.

I find British men very gentlemanly... like opening doors. There is a certain chivalry about British men which I like, and I'm a sucker for an accent.

I feel like I'm going backwards, actually, as I get older. I'm regressing. I feel more and more like a kid, which is kind of a fun feeling.

A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. I've been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I'm always convinced I'm not doing it right. Chemistry is so important in a great kiss. You can act your way through anything, but it's hard with a kiss.

Sure, I got lost, which is an actor's worst nightmare. But it is a gift as well, because great things come out of being lost and unsure, especially if you have a controlling side or a perfectionist side, which plenty of us do.

I did do some Shakespeare on film, it's really difficult. It's really interesting, because I was doing a series in Canada called 'Slings and Arrows' and it was about a company based around the Stratford Festival.

My mother never put an emphasis on looks. She let us grow up on our own time line. She never forced any beauty regimen into my world.

I need to have better knife skills... for vegetables.

I love stories with love in them. I just prefer those films. Every so often, I come across a film where there's no love story. It doesn't have to be romantic, but there's a lack of love, and I don't get that.

I've discovered as I've grown up that life is far more complicated than you think it is when you're a kid. It isn't just a straightforward fairytale.

My parents opened a bank account for me when I was really little, and I think I paid for some of my university education with my savings. I've always been a bit of a saver.

I definitely was in the sequined, bedazzled era. We would put blue eye shadow up our eyebrows and glitter all over our faces. I probably put more effort into my skating outfits than my clothes.

I had a small-town life - I worked at the local McDonald's for three years. I'm not sure why they kept me: I am something of a daydreamer and a dawdler, so they would only let me be the 'friendly voice' that greeted you when you entered the restaurant.

It's often out of my own insecurity. If I'm picky, it's for that reason. I want to be able to bring my best to the table. So if I'm not connecting to something, then I'm not gonna hold up my end of the bargain, and that's really embarrassing.

I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers,' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?

I personally think you can have a really rich and full life with no abs. Abs are for wimps.

You have to be really open to your acting partners and believe in the story.