“A lot of people are frightened by old age - by being around people who are, basically, on their way out - but I'm fascinated by it. It's an amazing thing to be around someone who has had a life well lived.”

“Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?”

“After two kids, I hit the pillow and go straight to sleep.”

“Ageing is something that both men and women are utterly terrified about.”

“All cities do face similar, significant trends in the future... most importantly global warming and climate change.”

“An actress once advised me, 'Make sure you do your own laundry - it will keep you honest.'”

“Armani makes a fantastic lip gloss called 'Beige 100.'”

“As an actor, I endeavor to find the reason in the unreasonable. Because no one thinks they are being unreasonable or unrealistic or demanding or behaving madly. We all see ourselves as being justified.”

“Australia is a remarkable country with incredible technical and physical resources and a capacity to be a world leader in renewables.”

“Because the picture is called 'Veronica Guerin,' you expect a biopic. But it's really about the last two years of her life.”

“Before having children, I think I probably approached work very differently, and you become much more economical and pragmatic about your relationship to it.”

“Before I made a film, I thought it was easy.”

“Being in Australia, I was really sun conscious. For a couple of summers there, I did the baby oil thing, and my my mom said, 'Just don't. You'll regret it.'”

“Being on stage a lot is quite physical.”

“Believe it or not, I'm pretty good at just doing nothing.”

“Conservatism is affecting the way women perceive who they are in the world.”

“Don't you find that work, if you love it, is actually really invigorating?”

“Every director works differently.”

“Every time I create a character, I don't assume they speak like I do, even if they're Australian.”

“Fine-tuning a play like 'Uncle Vanya,' which is already well-known to the people playing it, is not so much a verbal exercise as it is a visceral one.”

“For 'Blue Jasmine,' I made a decision not to wear any make up in the last shot of the film, as I felt like she had such a mask on - I thought it would be a good idea to leave her with nothing and become completely transparent.”

“For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot.”

“Happiness is fleeting - I think that's the main lesson I have learned.”

“I admire the work of brilliant actresses such as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, who have had such varied careers. They have never stopped working, and they are as great today as they ever were.”

“I always dressed as a man when I was at school. I loved wearing a tie and a shirt, and I was always wearing suits. Annie Lennox was my hero. I was always playing men in high school.”

“I am happiest when I don't know what's coming next.”

“I applaud Women in Film - not only for celebrating the successes of women, but for providing a safety network to mentor women and to discuss the particular issues that arise in a very male-dominated industry.”

“I believe that a creative career is only as good as the risks that you take with it.”

“I can be a real pessimist. You know that when you win an Oscar, and you walk offstage, and your first thought is: 'Oh God, I've peaked.'”

“I care about climate change because of our children. I want to safeguard their future.”

“I cook a mean Sunday lunch. My idea of Heaven is a lunch outside on a beautifully sunny Sunday afternoon. It's the time to gather everyone together.”

“I discovered early on that some performers live their life in order to act, so all their relationships are simply an experience that they can feed back into their work. Which I find vampiric.”

“I don't consciously think of how parenthood has changed me but I'm sure it must have.”

“I don't feel like, 'Now I'm a great actress.'”

“I don't have a sense of entitlement or that I deserve this. You'd be surprised at the lack of competition between nominees - I think a lot of it's imposed from the outside. Can I have my champagne now?”

“I don't know, maybe my sons will be gay.”

“I don't like a heavy mask of make-up day or night - mascara and a bit of bronzer.”

“I don't like to reduce a role to fit me. The challenge to me is to expand to it. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But that's the challenge of it.”

“I don't mind not looking conventionally - you know, attractive if that's what the part requires.”

“I don't think it's more difficult for actors to have a good marriage than anyone. I think, in the end, a really important component of any relationship is honesty, and it also comes down to luck.”

“I don't understand a way to work other than bold-facedly running towards failure.”

“I feel like I've been marinated in Australian theatre.”

“I feel very comfortable - literally and metaphorically - in my skin.”

“I find that the skills and the muscularity required to be on stage, you need to keep those up - I do, personally, in order to maintain your ability to perform on screen. You don't want to always be working in the one medium.”

“I grew up listening to music and going to the theatre.”

“I guess I prefer to be quite private. It's a myth that actors are exhibitionists.”

“I have a very healthy relationship to my work, and I find that if a scene is working, no matter how intense it is, you have the catharsis on screen, and you can let it go. I think it's, if at the end of the day you feel like you haven't cracked it, that's when you go home and it's more difficult to switch off.”

“I have the embarrassing thing where often if you're watching a film, you kind of go through the emotions and the thought stages that your character went through, but you sort of do it with Tourette's. So I end up often crying when I'm crying, and looking angry when I'm looking angry, so it's pretty ugly.”

“I haven't got many anecdotes. Maybe I should do something scandalous.”

“I just don't see myself as the heroine in my own narrative.”

“I live my life parallel with my work, and they are both equally important. I'm always amazed how much people talk about celebrity and fame. I don't understand the attraction.”

“I look forward to the holiday season every year.”

“I love 'Annie Hall,' but then I adore 'Hannah and Her Sisters.' Dianne Wiest is amazing in 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but her in 'Hannah and Her Sisters,' I absolutely loved it.”

“I love dressing up, although that doesn't mean necessarily on the school run.”

“I miss Brighton enormously, enormously. There is so much I miss, including rain. I miss the verdant countryside.”

“I never feel particularly comfortable holding a gun, but when you're playing somebody who lived in the frontier southwest, guns are a part of their life. Anyone who lives on land has a gun.”

“I never want to work. Even when you're presented with these great opportunities, I think, 'I really love being in my pajamas with the kids.'”

“I remember the first film I did, the lead actor would, in between scenes, be reading a newspaper or sleeping and I'd think, 'How can you do that?' But it's so exhausting, you can't be 'on' 12-14 hours a day.”

“I remember thinking, when I was playing Hedda Gabler, that several sequences of the play were utterly absurd.”

“I said to Martin Scorsese, 'When are you going to make another film with a woman at the center?'”

“I saw the first 'How to Train Your Dragon' film with my children, and I found it utterly exhilarating.”

“I suppose the more established one gets, you have what's called a reputation, and so you want to protect that and preserve that. And I think the bravery really comes in one's mid career where you then are constantly trying to move beyond that and move past that, because those so-called successors can become shackles.”

“I tend to have this perverse reaction to authority and stress: I become more confident and clear when a challenge is enormous.”

“I tend to use really basic creams, and I like to put an oil on, like an emu oil from Australia. It's from the emu, and it's really nourishing. I prefer an oil to a cream.”

“I think about my father and how sad it was that he never had grandchildren.”

“I think at the prospect of bringing children into the world, your mortality comes very much to the forefront, absolutely.”

“I think I just want to garden - or kill some plants, in my case.”

“I think if you're going to wear a red lip, you don't want it wearing you, so it's about finding the right colour.”

“I think if you're too embroiled in the need to relate too closely to the character, then you start to judge the character for the audience rather than to present it to the audience for their enjoyment and them to mull over the questions that the characters present.”

“I think it's always good to take on things that at first seem bigger than you. Then you just try and surmount them.”

“I think it's so easy to be judgmental of other people's decisions.”

“I think marriage is all about timing.”

“I think my understanding of different types of love has certainly deepened.”

“I think our Western society is very much about, 'Tuck your head in; make sure you're safe. Don't rock the boat.'”

“I think Pilates is great, especially when you can do it with a trainer who keeps you on track.”

“I think sometimes when you're working consistently in film, and maybe this is just me, but you do feel quite dislocated from your audience.”

“I think that the benefit of playing someone like Queen Elizabeth is that so much has been written about her, and there's so much speculation about her - was she a hermaphrodite? She's so mythologised, and there are a lot of images of her.”

“I think that what appeals to me in my work is having the opportunity to inhabit different genres and so to reach different audiences.”

“I think that's what I love about my life. There's no maniacal master plan. It's just unfolding before me.”

“I think the atmosphere on set really comes from the material, but also the director.”

“I think the height of ridiculousness was when I was playing Elizabeth in 'The Golden Age' while preparing to start shooting 'I'm Not There.' I literally finished filming Elizabethan grandeur on Friday, flew to Montreal, and started being Bob Dylan on Monday.”

“I think the more you do as an actor, the more facility you have to switch on and off.”

“I think the only thing I knew for sure is that I wanted to, whatever I did, I wanted to travel with my work, an adventurous spirit.”

“I think there are way too many films made, and I've probably made way too many films.”

“I think there is a long exploration in American drama of women in particular who, by force of circumstances or because they are predisposed to, choose fantasy over reality.”

“I think we should stop drinking bottled water. There's no need to be drinking it if you're living in western communities.”

“I think when I was pregnant with my first child - he's about 10 or 11 now - I first noticed changes in my skin, which can make you panic a bit. I had a bit of melasma.”

“I use the Philip Kingsley range of shampoos, and they've got a great elasticiser, which is fantastic. I wrap my hair in cling film and put that on.”

“I want to be able to follow the example of those extraordinary British actresses who move effortlessly from film to TV to theatre roles.”

“I want to see a connected and progressive future for Australia, where we harness our greatest natural resources: sun, wind, and brain power.”

“I went through a mod and goth-phase when I decided that I wouldn't ever be the bronzed beach-bunny. I started going as pale as I possibly could.”

“I would really have liked to have gone to Broadway with 'A Streetcar Named Desire.' I was proud of that.”

“If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life - that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment - that would be the perfect state.”

“If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles - you're lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers; you're brother and sister. That's what intimacy is, if you're with your soulmate.”

“If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously.”

“If you only exercise your soloist muscles, the other muscles quickly atrophy.”

“I'm a much healthier person through my relationship with my husband. I've become a more fulfilled person - it's a great partnership.”

“I'm always without sleep. I've got two kids. I understand sleep deprivation on a profound level.”

“I'm constantly humbled.”

“I'm either sitting very still or running very fast.”

“I'm from Australia, where the film industry is potent but small.”

“I'm incredibly fortunate to have met the intelligent, generous, risk-taking, stimulating man to whom I am married. He's really amazing.”

“I'm incredibly lucky that my profession allows me to be where I choose, really.”

“I'm not focused on what other people think of me.”

“I'm not interested in playing characters who see the world through my prism; I think the journey of understanding any character is to see how they tick and how they differ from you.”

“I'm not interested in using my father's death as some touch point for why I've become an actor - it's grossly opportunistic.”

“I'm not particularly interested in playing characters that think the way I do.”

“I'm not particularly needy, and I'm not particularly anxious. I don't look for a director to tell me I'm doing a good job or that I'm great. I don't need to be stroked. It's more my own yardstick.”

“I'm not sitting on a soapbox telling women what they should and shouldn't do, but I know what works for me.”

“I'm not sure if I want to direct a film, but certainly, as an actress, I'm always thinking, 'Surely this must be my last film.'”

“I'm not well read.”

“I'm of the opinion that it's okay to be silent, to not speak if you don't have anything to say.”

“I'm one of those strange beasts who really likes a corset.”

“I'm really lazy!”

“I'm scared of actors with a scheme.”

“I'm so misunderstood!”

“I'm very fast.”

“I'm very old fashioned.”

“In every war, there's looting.”

“In my career, I thought I've never wanted to get anywhere in particular. I just wanted to work with interesting people on interesting projects.”

“Inhibition is something I notice in hamstrung actors all the time. They can be wonderful up to a point and then become very self-conscious.”

“It is so interesting when you meet an actor in real life and they look completely different.”

“It took me a long time to get comfortable with the idea of being photographed by a moving or still camera.”

“It was only when I realized how actors have the power to move people that I decided to pursue acting as a career.”

“It's important to travel and move and have a continual set of experiences so you've got more to feed back into your work. For me, it's a natural thing.”

“It's not the normal way to look at things but I experienced death at a really young age and because of that it's been part of my mental landscape that death is really very possible.”

“I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.”

“I've been mostly influenced by experiences in the theater growing up.”

“I've been pretty lucky in the leading men department.”

“I've known the panic of financial struggle. I didn't grow up with money at all, and my family has certainly known the panic of, 'Oh, gosh, where's the next bit of money coming from?'”

“Like any mum, I fear some mysterious illness befalling my children.”

“Look, I live in the modern world as much as anyone else.”

“Look, it's one of the great mysteries of the world, I cannot answer that question. I think I'm vaguely blonde. To be perfectly frank, I don't know.”

“Louise Frogley is a brilliant designer. I always find her wardrobe fittings really informative and creative. Together, you kick images and ideas around.”

“Marriage is a risk; I think it's a great and glorious risk, as long as you embark on the adventure in the same spirit.”

“Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I have to write everything down.”

“Men are boys for such a long time and really don't start getting the great roles until they're in their mid-thirties. But then they've got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it's all about playing younger and younger and younger.”

“My everyday beauty routine is always rushed and pretty simple.”

“My father died when I was young, and after he did, my mother had it tough. Very tough.”

“My husband keeps me really honest.”

“My husband went through a phase of giving me vacuum cleaners, sewing machines and Mixmasters. It's ironic. He is encouraging me to develop a hobby, I think.”

“My kids don't watch any TV, but they watch videos and films. I'm sure they watch it at friends' houses.”

“No one is ever who they purport to be.”

“No one wants to see me struggling to get a horse under control because I can't ride it. And no one wants to see me not knowing how to deal with the psychological makeup of the character.”

“Obviously, if Woody Allen calls and says he wants you to read a script, of course you read it.”

“Once you get an offer from Steven Soderbergh, you just do anything you can to make it fit.”

“Particularly at the moment, it's an incredibly optimistic thing to bring children into the world.”

“Passion is a quality I admire in a woman.”

“People are always saying they loved me in 'Titanic.'”

“People assume actors are born liars, but I'd argue the actor's job is to tell the truth. And I've realised I'm not a good liar.”

“People had always vaguely mentioned that when you have children, how part of your life would stop. But they don't say that some other extraordinary part of your life opens up.”

“People love events - they love performances, they love music - and I think Australians are great entertainers.”

“People who say, 'There's nothing to fear from spiders' have clearly never been to Australia.”

“Planning cities is a necessary but risky business.”

“Playing the lead in a film where you shoot for three months away from home is not an easy thing for me when my children are in school and my husband is running a theatre company.”

“Some ideas, like what you're going to do with your life, take time to form.”

“Suddenly, my friend's daughters are becoming my best friends. I have so many 12-year-old girlfriends.”

“The great thing about not being American is that you don't assume you know what a Southern accent sounds like, so you have to be specific.”

“The more you can remove the obstacles between you and the world as a woman, the easier and simpler life becomes.”

“The one thing that all great cities have in common is that they are all different.”

“The Oscar is very beautiful, utterly mesmeric, but I don't feel any more important because I have won one. It doesn't mean I'm any better than anyone.”

“The power of the story sheds a light and great perspective on well known facts. The power of cinema draws on that collective history.”

“The word 'circumnavigate' is quite a beautiful word.”

“Theater is a space where you cross over from everyday life, because there are real people in that moment moving in front of you - you're being invited to believe in a story and cross that bridge.”

“There are certain people who prize celebrity over substance. That makes the media world go round. The media needs those people to exist.”

“There are certain things in ancient practices that are not worth adhering to.”

“There are very few issues that lie specifically in one region now. Polio in Syria doesn't affect Syria alone. I don't think any issue can ever be isolated into local politics these days, because we all know too much.”

“There is a societal cost of increased pollution, and that's what I'm passionate about as a mother.”

“There is not a lot of separation between work and home life.”

“There is so much talent in Australia.”

“There's an expression in Australia that's called 'Go Bush,' which means to get out of the city and relax. I try and 'go bush' to places where there's no cell reception. But, I don't get to do that often, so for the most part, it's just a state of mind.”

“There's many things that you can do with your life. It doesn't necessarily - I think if you're in a creative sphere, or if you're hungry for experience, then those experiences don't necessarily happen like rungs of a ladder or in a linear way.”

“There's not a long, entrenched tradition of theatergoing in Australia.”

“There's very little reason in politics these days.”

“Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.”

“Those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences - they are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.”

“Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.”

“We keep making the same mistakes as a species, and you can usually draw it back to the fact that we are all terrified of dying. We also all think that we are going to escape it until we get to 65!”

“We need to keep switching up the language around climate change.”

“Well, I've never looked upon myself as being a beauty, per se.”

“We're constantly morphing into different outward manifestations of ourselves. That's what I find curious about people.”

“We've enshrined the purity, sanctity, value, and importance of bringing children into the world, yet we don't discuss death. There used to be an enshrined period where mourning was a necessary part of going through the process of grieving; death wasn't considered morbid or antisocial. But that's totally gone.”

“What happens a lot in film, though not so much in the theatre, is that you get stroked and sort of massaged, like a little guinea pig.”

“When a gift is difficult to give away, it becomes even more rare and precious, somehow gathering a part of the giver to the gift itself.”

“When anyone plays a mother on film, there is a whole raft of judgment in that a mother is a particular archetype or that every mother is the same. That's complete rubbish.”

“When I came out of drama school, I was in a shared house in Sydney.”

“When I emerged from drama school, I had no expectation that I would ever work in film.”

“When I have my moments of insomnia, you'll find me on style.com.”

“When I see daughters with their fathers I wonder what that would be like, although not in a way that immobilises me.”

“When my husband turned 40, I was obsessed. 'Has he had his medical checkup?' He needed to go to the doctor; he needed to go to the dentist. Any little cough, I was really on him. Then he turned 40, and I thought, 'Maybe that's why I've been so obsessed with his health!'”

“When something is a vocation, you don't really make a decision about it.”

“When you are proud of something you have done, and you have made a film you feel has merit, and it's found an audience and is critically well received, that's a pretty pleasurable place to be. I mean, you don't want it gathering dust at the bottom of someone's DVD collection.”

“When you go to a concert, part of being there is that you're all hearing the same thing. It's about being in a crowd. If you go to a gig and there are two people there, then it's not the same thing.”

“When you're a performer, of course you want an audience, but it's very, very different from courting fame.”

“When you're directing something, you absolutely have to be involved in all layers of the process.”

“When you're onstage, you're acutely aware of the reaction of a particular group of people, because it's like a wave.”

“When you're stretching yourself, as a role like 'Blue Jasmine' did for me, you risk falling flat on your face.”

“Who would want a face that hasn't seen or lived properly, hasn't got any wrinkles that come with age, experience and laughter? Not me, anyway.”

“Woody Allen is a great dramatist and a great comedian.”

“You can't be trying to make a film that pleases all people, you know, so it's not a concern of mine.”

“You can't really achieve anything in three years.”

“You do not want to be in a creative organisation with everybody being like-minded and stroking each other's creative egos. You want differences of opinion... constructively.”

“You don't ever really get to know Woody Allen.”

“You have to know how to evolve with age without trying to hang on to your younger image of yourself from the past.”

“You have to surrender less when you see a film than when you go and see something live.”

“You know, you do have a self-awareness as an actor.”

“You know you've made it when you've been moulded in miniature plastic. But you know what children do with Barbie dolls - it's a bit scary, actually.”

“You're always more critical of your own country. People will talk about stuff in Britain, and I'll go: 'Aw, it's not that bad,' but at home, it's different. It's inside you.”