When I exercise, I like to take lots of different classes because I want to really apply myself and feel like I’m learning a new skill. Not that I ever want to have to demonstrate any of those skills!
Do your eye shadow first, then your foundation. That way, you can clean up any mess without starting all over again.
We all know guys who’ve had their hearts broken in real life; we just don’t usually see it in the movies.
The red-carpet thing of premieres and parties is probably my least favourite part of my job.
I still have in me the same awareness when I was 12 and chubby and a girl was spitting in my face. I’m the same person.
I have been a harmony enthusiast since I was a child, singing in choir and with friends growing up. I always put a ton of harmonies on my demos.
I don’t know how to explain how, probably to my detriment, unselfpromoting I am. I used to have a cabaret act and I didn’t even like to tell me people about that. I really hate selling myself.
I find sadness and strife to be so much more interesting with an upbeat melody.
I remember having this friend in school who said she didn’t like the Beach Boys. And in that moment I knew we couldn’t be friends anymore.
There are a lot of actors who will sit here and talk to you about characters – ‘He does this, and she’s a really interesting character because she does this.’ I’m not like that at all. I’m not an actory actor.
Making movies, you’re like an independent contractor – you come in, you have a specific job, and a lot of what you do is completely manipulated, which is good and bad.
I’ve had experiences where I wasn’t allowed to change words around at all because you have to say everything, exactly as written on the page. That’s not fun for me. For me, part of being an actor is being able to contribute to a character’s rhythms. If there’s room to explore, you find a happy medium.
Secretly, I think everyone who makes fun of California really does want to be in California.
To be a gluten-free vegan is, like, the most difficult thing you can possibly be.
I think my own personal style always ends up seeping into characters that I play. I’ve always had a very distinct idea of fashion for myself, and what a character should wear.
Girls get competitive, as though there’s only one spot in the world for everything _ but that’s not true. We need to stick together and see there’s more to life than pleasing men. It’s important not to cut yourself off from female friendships. I think sometimes girls get scared of other girls, but you need each other.
I just feel like growing up in Los Angeles, you learn, ‘Well you’re never gonna be the prettiest girl in the room, so just don’t even try.’ I mean, I care about being pretty, but it’s not my most valued thing.
I like to make colored xeroxes of things. I clip out pictures of Liza Minelli and her husband from magazines and I fax them to people anonymously.
Not that there is anything wrong with confessional songwriting, there are plenty of people that do that I admire. I think it is great, it just isn’t how I do things.
If I could give my teenaged self any advice, it would be ‘Calm down!’
I don’t think there are that many awesome roles out there, whether we’re talking about movies or TV.
I tend to like simple music. And clever, succinct lyrics. Songs that don’t try to be more than they need to to be effective, to stir up something emotionally within you.
I did not have a date to the prom. I went to my junior prom alone, and my senior prom, I was doing my first movie. I went in a limousine with, like, a bunch of people to my junior prom. It was a group date.
I’ve never pursued a role. I always hear stories about actors going after parts and I’m, like, ‘How do they do that?’ It seems so weird. It seems like a total myth or something.
Know what suits you. Now I understand proportion and recognise the shapes that look good on my figure.
I was doing about five movies a year for many years. I was just so tired. I walked around feeling like a Mack truck hit me.
It’s cool cause my sister is older than me and we went to the same high school, so by the time I got to high school, I got the lowdown on all the teachers and everything.
The moment you sense someone is making something because they think people are gonna buy it or like it, it’s just so phony! The public has a nose for phony like nobody else.
I listened to a lot of Joni Mitchell in high school. She was sort of an inspiration to me. I think she’s a great lyricist, and she makes interesting choices.
Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips music of what makes it exciting.
There are so many cute vintage dresses made out of synthetics from the ’60s and ’70s – but they’re so itchy and hot. It’s not worth it!
I like playing sort-of-crazy people. There’s something really, really fun about that.
I played a lot of sarcastic, wisecracking characters for a long time, and people would think that was me. And it’s very much not me, and then people would think I was being sarcastic when I wasn’t: ‘Oh, you’re making fun of me right now.’ And I wasn’t!
I get embarrassed a lot of times getting attention, but I like being onstage. Do you know what I mean? If I’m in a crowd of people and they’re all looking at me, I will feel embarrassed. It’s a strange dichotomy.
I like acting with no lines because all of a sudden you’re able to express things without always worrying about the text. It’s great to have a great text, but there’s a lot of stuff you can’t say in words, and I think there’s something really nice about good physical moments.
If people just want to be famous, that’s just not enough to get you up at 4 in the morning to go to work. You have to love what you’re doing.
I think that if you haven’t been to the grocery store in a really long time, it’s really easy to get very out of touch.
I wanted to be a child actor so bad that every day I’d beg my parents if I could audition, but my mom said, ‘Not until you can drive yourself to auditions.’
I’m wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, ‘I am my musical taste.’ I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that’s a thing that people romanticize: ‘Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.’
A lot of people work out to be skinny. That’s so boring, and it seems like a depressing goal for a modern woman.
I grew up believing my sister was from the planet Neptune and had been sent down to Earth to kill me. I believed this because my sister Emily convinced me of it when I was a toddler. I think she’d seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers and her imagination ran away with her. There’s a part of me that still believes it.
The first job I ever had was singing in a jazz club when I was like 15 with my friend, and we earned like 70 bucks. We were like, ‘Oh my God!’
The Internet’s like one big bathroom wall with a lot of people who anonymously can say really mean things. It’s fine, I believe in freedom of speech and I think people should think what they want, but I don’t care to hear it.
I’ve personally never wanted to be ‘the babe’, and refuse to let vanity get in the way of my acting because I don’t see my job as being a beautiful person.
I think I’d say that my whole body of work is a reflection of who I am, but not any one specific thing.
I’ve always been really picky about roles and make a point of reminding myself that it’s not about the money – because, obviously, there’s a lot of money to be made in this business if you’re willing to do anything.
If you can make a character likable that’s not very nice, that’s the challenge of the job.
Growing up in Hollywood meant there were a lot of film stars’ kids at my school – but no conspicuous wealth. It wasn’t cool to show off that you had money.
I think penguins are cute.
I know a lot of people that have had fake Twitters… actors and musicians that I know. It’s sort of a problem. There are all these people that sign up thinking that they’re getting somebody’s real thoughts when it’s just some guy.
It’s interesting, because as a musician, I don’t feel like I need to be on the top of the pop charts.
I’m the worst at picking what movies are going to do well. I have no idea. I’m really surprised if a movie I like does well.
If I’m trying to please every craze fan, then I can’t. Of course, we all want to please the fans.
I don’t have control over what’s on screen, and that’s terrifying.
I like singing as much as I like acting, and all through high school I thought I might be a Broadway singer.
I wasn’t really the most charming person, socially – it took me a long time to develop my people skills – but the one place I was always comfortable was onstage, acting or singing.
I’m always doing something musically – when I’m working or when I’m off.
I think there’s a certain space people have decided I occupy – the funny-sidekick thing.
I have had brown hair and bangs since I was 2. One year I dyed it blonde, which felt so weird.
In my mind, I always think of myself as an underdog type.
I’m not going to say I’m a big girl. I’m a very small person, but I’m a healthy weight. That might be a little weird for Hollywood.
‘It Girl’ is supposed to be something that only lasts a certain amount of time. They keep calling me an ‘It Girl,’ and at this point it makes me laugh, because I’ve done that so many times: ‘You’re it;’ ‘You’re not it.’ What is ‘it?’
I don’t like business talkers, you know, people who are constantly like, ‘Blah blah blah movies.’ I find it incredibly boring.
I am always early to work but sometimes late to other things.
I always wanted to be normal. I tried really hard, but it’s like I try so hard and then people still say I’m offbeat. I’ve learnt to accept that and take advantage of it as an actor.
I did go through this period where girls would be mean and I had a lot of guy friends. But I’ve found as an adult the importance of having female and male friends.
I’d be more likely to go for somebody who is like me. Well, I like creative people, so whatever that means… Yeah, authentic and creative.
In a lot of movies, you’ll see people on crazy dates, and you’re like, ‘No one would ever do that!’
Every show is unique; some shows have the master plan and have everything figured out and that’s just the way they do things. It’s like high school. Some people write their papers the second they get their assignments, and some people write it the day after it’s due.
If I’m going to be ‘too’ anything, ‘too cute’ is fine. I love puppies. So what? Who hates puppies?
It’s an addiction. I love clothes. I like to go down Melrose and look in all the windows and I go to different flea markets. I have lots of costumes. You never know when you’re going to have to dress up like a milkmaid from the 1600s.
I love downtown L.A .and I relish any opportunity to spend time there.
I love to cook. But I have some food allergies, so I have to contend with those.
I get really insecure because even though I can speak in musician’s terms, I don’t know as much as real musicians.
Women I admired growing up – Debra Winger, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep – were all beautiful and thin, but not too thin. There are a lot of actresses who are unhealthy-skinny – much, much too skinny. You can’t Pilates to that.
I sort of consider myself a comedic actress, not a comedienne. I think it’s different. You know, I’m not a stand-up or anything, but playing into comedic situations is sort of where, I think, my strength lies.
I put myself out there; it’s part of my job, and I get it: people will attack me. At first I was thrown off, but now I have a pretty thick skin about it.
I really like the collaboration of doing movies and television. But I like the sort of solitary work of doing music.
The first album I bought with my own money was ‘A Hard Day’s Night.’
I’ve always straddled a weird line – there’s a lot of mainstream stuff that I love. At the same, I still feel like an outsider. I’m the outsider who’s on the inside.
I think the best comedic actors don’t play it for comedy, they play it for reality. Then you find it funny because it’s real. Playing the genre is the worst thing you can do – it’s embarrassing.
I think making a movie or a record, the best things happen by accident – and those end up being the magic. Every time I’ve followed my gut it’s been better than when I’ve tried to do what I was supposed to do.
What led me to be an actor is that I have a strange something in me that can drastically change the way I appear to the world. Growing up, I couldn’t understand why people would always have different ideas of me – but because of that I became aware of how you can manipulate your own ability to change. And then I learned to make a career of it.
When you work on a movie, especially an independent movie, it’s a lot of work to make it! It’s not just our job as actors – so many people are working so hard, and even the littlest movie takes a lot of work.
Oh my God, there are so many songs I wish I had written. ‘Waters of March,’ I wish I had written ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me,’ I wish I had written ‘This Will Be Our Year,’ I mean, there’s millions of them. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice?’
I never have time to have a dinner. I have to eat while I’m memorizing lines. The only way to maintain energy is to eat all day long. I must eat all day long.
For some reason, people look at me and laugh. I don’t know why.
I can’t even remember the first time I started singing.
You can’t expect to make no effort. You still have to make the effort and be kind and understanding.
Certain aspects of my personality are always going to come out on-screen. I guess that’s just me – if they say I’m quirky, I’m quirky. It’s better than being boring.
I’m a person who has a lot of energy. So, yes, I don’t really stop to rest or de-stress. I just keep going. I figure that if you don’t stop, then you’ll never notice how tired you are.
Especially in comedies, I think a lot of time the female characters are there to provide a balance for guys.
Humor is a part of spirituality.
If I were to work with my mom, I probably would not want her to play my mom. That would get too real.
I love having a lot of content. I prefer to have constant stimulation.
I think that the mistakes that anyone can make going on dates is probably not being themselves because you can only trick people for so long.
People sometimes say, ‘Oh, you were a movie star,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I was a supporting actress.’ I wasn’t an A-list actress, and I’m fine with that. I’m proud of what I did in film.
I have Pro Tools on my computer, and I make CDs all the time.
Everyone romanticizes somebody.
