The unknown makes people uncomfortable. And even living in a city that's as cosmopolitan as New York City is, there's so many things I don't know about other cultures, even though I encounter other cultures - maybe even 18 or 19 of them - when I get on a subway car every day.

Sometimes I take a movie that I know is not great; it's not great on the page, but I need to work. Sometimes I need to make the money. I need dough. I want to work, and so I'll take something that is compromised in some arena. But it's like, actors gotta act.

As we get older, people close down. We get less adaptive, less flexible - literally. Curiosity can diminish, and you want safety. You want what you know.

This is why we have racism, really: because people are confronting the unknown, and they don't like that.

The cool thing about those small-budget movies is that there's a tremendous amount of freedom the filmmakers have since there's less money at stake.

I'm not religious. I'm not an atheist. Would I say I'm an agnostic? Possibly. But I would say the collective unconscious is something I'm much more interested in.

I liked to carry the script into an audition because, for me, it reminded people that this was not the final performance. I'm still a work in progress.

I always had an acting crush on Philip Seymour Hoffman. He just wowed me all the time. He was just quietly so impressive and so private.

I moved to New York in 1980, and I met Beth Henley, who's a marvellous playwright and who I have a real personal and professional association with, in 1982. I met her in a stalled elevator - we were the only two people in there - and she's been one of my very dearest friends since.

Some actors say they don't know themselves at all, and that's why they act: because they can disappear into other people.

My nucleus of friends or something protects me from the machinery that is Hollywood. I don't think I'm on the same quest that a lot of people are. I guess that could be a limitation.

Is there a higher energy? I would say yes, even if the energy is collective. Even if it's kind of Jungian, or the whole thing is collective consciousness, that may be God as far as I'm concerned. So is there an energy that's higher than mine? Yes. But would I claim it as God? I would say no.

The forcefulness of life is where vitality kind of intersects.

What's great about cable is that the ceiling of expectation is lowered because fewer people have to tune in for it to be a success. You don't need 23 million people a week like you do in broadcast.

I appreciate my instincts, but my instincts can be dead wrong. Circumspection can give you time.

I get cold really quickly, but I don't care. I like weather. I never understand why people move someplace so that they can avoid weather.

I've never directed, but it must be humbling.

The rhythm of my career has always been very static, staccato and then silent, and then a lot of work, and then none.

I really admire people who are extraordinarily tolerant and patient.

I've never worked as much as I would've wanted to, and that's why I end up doing a lot of stage as well, because stage is a full course meal.

More and more movies have been pressured to allow reporters and TV cameras to come onto the set while you're working, and I find that a real violation.

I would love to work more - I really would - but there is not a lot of stuff around and the stuff that is around is not very complicated; it tends to lie a little flat.

I act probably a lot more than you see. I happen to choose movies that don't have much of a life, or I choose movies that are shown on cable instead of as features.

I think it's really odd, too, that the public is so privy to how much money the actors make and what movies cost. It seems to me to be beside the point. When I go to a movie I really don't want to think about the money. I want to see the story.

I don't offer advice to actors only because I've seen actors become successful through ways that would never even occur to me or that wouldn't work for me.

I've enjoyed the process of understanding who I am through my work and who I am in relation to others: the intense collaboration that acting requires and thrives in.

I am a huge fan of Cronenberg, all his movies.

My sister took me as her own. My mum had a lot of help raising me. That's what happens in large families: your siblings raise you.

Privacy is paradise.

Man, I would have loved to have been fully cognisant of the power of Janis Joplin. I would have loved to have been part of the revolution.

I object to the actual phrase 'Follow me.' You've gotta be kidding! Why would I want to follow anybody else? Nor do I want them to follow me. The machinations of my life, the banalities - they're mine. They belong to me.

I reveal all of myself. I bring all of myself to my roles. You only see me. You don't see anything else but me. That is who's there. They're manifestations of my own self.

I never thought about moving to L.A.; I always wanted to be in New York. I moved there, and now I still have a kind of love affair with the city.

Most of the time I live a fully anonymous life, which is the way I like it.

My career has never really been a vertical kind of thing. I mean, it's always been a bit difficult for me.

I remember that when I was in my 30s, a hot age for an actress, lots of offers were coming in, but nothing was great, and I didn't work for 18 months. It was at a really fruitful age, and I wanted to work. There was nothing coming down the pipeline that I thought was good - and then I got 'The Piano.'

I'm a leading lady character actor; I don't fit in one slot simply. I've always been used to a certain amount of struggle, and that prepared me wonderfully for a mature age.

Sometimes it's very difficult to do a movie that's good and then have that movie make it to the light of day.

I really would love to take a big break and not be photographed, not perform.

I grew up on a farm. The worst-looking chickens are the best layers. The ones that are the scraggliest... those are usually the ones that are really cooking.

I think that, initially, I was most passionate about music and particularly about playing the piano. I started playing when I was nine, and I was obsessed with it, really. I wouldn't even go spend the night at a friend's unless they had a piano. But I didn't have the chops, the extraordinary talent to be able to play the piano professionally.

I found acting when I was 14, when I got cast in the chorus in a high school play, 'The Boyfriend.' In my high school, we did mainly musicals, so I just started doing nothing but musicals for years and loved it.

To me, being creative is a very fragile thing. The environment in which one can create is a very particular one, and somehow, I've always felt the need to be very protective of that.

Often, in the movie business, they need somebody who will garner box office because they need to pay for the movie. So the people who are in movies that make a lot of money are the people who most often get cast in studio pictures. In my career, I've never been a box office name.

'Saving Grace' was a full stretch-out - literally, physically, spiritually, psychologically. And I needed to take a year-and-a-half off when it was over.

Sometimes you have to marinate instead of making a quick decision. I appreciate my instincts, but my instincts can be dead wrong. Circumspection can give you time.

People have always searched for answers. That's why we have religion; people have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.

I love wearing wigs because they're instantly transformational.

'Top Of The Lake' is a great story with a beginning, and a middle and an end, about darkness - it's like the heart of darkness. And everybody has got one. When I was reading it, I couldn't put it down, and I wanted to know what was going to happen next.

It's always been my way to move about a little more horizontally. My career has never been like a shooting star.