When you're dealing with Hollywood people, it creates a tight, tense atmosphere through the whole thing. And I don't like to work in that kind of atmosphere. I like to make my movies in a kind of relaxed atmosphere.
I literally designed and built the sets myself, and I kind of liked it. I always gave myself eight weeks to do that - sometimes even 10 - and the shooting took five or six weeks.
No matter how many times your amazing, absolutely brilliant work is rejected by the client, for whatever dopey, arbitrary reason, there is often another amazing, absolutely brilliant solution possible.
Sometimes it's even better.
The sets were fantastic. The Harry Potter sets are brilliant. You do get transported for a second.
I don't think you should spend that much time in the gym. Don't sit around between sets too long. If you want to burn some calories, keep the sets tight. Give yourself 30 seconds to a minute between each set. Supersetting is brilliant.
I am the kind who is always on time while shooting.
When you're still, and some actors are really brilliant at that, you bring a kind of energy to you as opposed to sending the energy out. There are some actors, like Gary Cooper or Kevin Spacey, that are absolutely brilliant - Gene Hackman is another - at being and allowing the audience to just do the work.
The only time I used to regret being a woman was when I had to use the toilets on sets when I would be shooting.
We live in a crazy time. Every other week, there's a school shooting. There's always some nutty thing and I've always wanted to kind of understand the crazy.
You get the right collection of people together and you get the atmosphere together that it is very free where there is no judgment. If you create an atmosphere that is very open you steer the ship.
Happiness is a light, an atmosphere, an illumination. It sets a personality. I always feel that it is a creation that is difficult for some and easy for others, but essentially an achievement, never an accident.
I like how time goes on set. It's almost like time on an airplane or something where people are together. It's a different, very trippy kind of time, I find, because you're together in imaginary time where you're out of time. You're called upon to be present and honor what can happen in the moment. And the whole day can go like that. The whole day can be a kind of meditation.
When I was in Baltimore, I played in several different bands, doing four sets a night, two sets of originals, two sets of covers, that kind of thing.
I believe in working together to solve the problems we've got. And we need to get rid of the venom in the political atmosphere in D.C. It's a poisonous atmosphere.
It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in - especially if, like me, you finished school early.
I hear from people all the time and it infuriates me that 'President Obama's a brilliant politician.' No he absolutely is not.