Some people in LA are addicted. They have to be here. My personal life is stronger than my professional life, in terms of priorities.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I live in Italy part time, and they're obsessed with what's happening in LA too. They make fun of Americans, but the world wants to know what's going on in Hollywood.

I started doing makeup to make a living. Then I said, You're not supposed to be putting powder on other people. You're supposed to be powdering yourself.

I think my career would probably be in a better place had I been more aggressive. But I don't have it in me. I'm not a competitive person, and I'm also really private.

I truly have a love-hate thing with the press.

I've never wanted to be the ingenue. Now that I'm getting into my forties, I think my time as a woman has arrived; I think I might have a new moment in my career. I have that drive left - just for a little while.

With the breast-feeding, I really love the bonding. Real life is more important to me.

When my mother was raising me, she moved us upstate to the Woodstock area. Our closest neighbor was a mile away. She planted all her own vegetables.

There's so much importance in honoring your everyday hero. It doesn't take money. It doesn't take connections. What matters is that people get involved. Whether your passion is gun control or food or whatever it may be, everybody needs to stop being so self-absorbed.

I always had dreams. I knew I wanted to have money to buy things at the flea market. That's worked out well.

We go to Italy every winter, and my husband's mother has a bingo party on Christmas. Every woman brings a dish: lentils, cavolo nero, tons of beans, polenta, every type of cheese, bruschetta, fresh vegetables, and local olive oil and wine.

I like to watch Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, because I like them when they travel. I like Ina Garten, 'The Barefoot Contessa.' Giada is really nice, but I get a little bit bored with just staying in the kitchen.

My husband has the philosophy that if you can work a Nintendo control, you can chop an onion. So, we have our children in the kitchen. We sit down every night for dinner. We're trying to give our kids a sense of what's going into their bodies, and it's also good for family time.

I find it beautiful when we're in Italy that everybody sits down at the table together. My mother-in-law is like, 'It doesn't matter what's going on in the house, who is fighting, who is upset, who has appointments, you sit down at that table at one o'clock.'

Usually I wear my grandma's old aprons, or others I have collected in my travels. When I was young, I would sit and watch my grandma prepare stuff. She wasn't Italian, but she did really good Italian food.

For holidays, I like doing special cheery touches around the table, like color-coordinating the plates and napkins to fit the theme.

I haven't always had the money rolling in. I'm a character actor; it's not like I'm Gwyneth Paltrow - so I do have hard times still in my life. And that's even more why it's like you know what, I'm not that different from people going through it. I struggle; I look for a better deal at the grocery store.

I used to watch my grandmother make fancy, Julia Child-style beef bourguignon. And growing up in New York City, I was exposed to many cultures. I experimented with Puerto Rican and Jamaican food.

As a matter of fact, I've been to Italy many times before I met my husband, which he can't even imagine that I could possibly know anything about Italian food. But, you know, Italian food's really basic, and there's so many different variations on it that what my husband did is he broke it down for me.

I don't like the idea of things being off-limits to kids - like a fancy sitting room where they can't touch anything. I own vintage pottery cups, and I let my girls hold them. It teaches them to treat objects with respect.

I'm never sloppy, and I never wear jeans. I don't work one look in particular, but it's usually retro - I'm a flea-market freak. And detailed - I'm always very done, even at the gym.

Sitting down at the table is a sacred event. It's the heart of the home. People have ginormous homes or crappy little homes, but the kitchen is where we always end up sitting. It's where the stories happen, the family happens.

Being typecast is a great thing for an actor. I was considered one of the New York mob actors.