Being scared is good. It's the antithesis of complacency. As long as it doesn't cripple you, I welcome it all.

   When I was younger, I may have felt more strongly the need to distance myself from her, but where I have come to now is that I basically embrace that part of who I am.

   I've totally come to terms with that. It hasn't been a problem for me. It hasn't hindered me to do other work. I'm obviously associated with that and what a great thing to be associated with.

   One of the things I love the most about the business is the people that I've worked with, the good relationships and the friends that I've made, sharing theatre with other people who have a similar drive, similar desire . . . To achieve the project to the best of our ability . . . the thing we love the most is working and that's why we're actors. For me there's no time for anything other than that; there's too much to learn, there's too much that I want to achieve. Everything else is quite superfluous and doesn't contribute to achieving the standard I want to set for myself.

   That's what's so interesting about live theatre -- it's an open question. You keep trying to get certain things right, trying to explore certain things. It's exciting because it's never the same.

   I feel fortunate to have gotten that role and to have had that experience because there are few dynamic female roles, particularly for young women, where you get to do so many different things. Roles where it's not about what you look like: not about how you're going to be judged sexually; not an episode of Baywatch.

   Obviously when women get to a certain age in Hollywood they start to become invisible. You only have to turn on the TV and watch how most women are portrayed . . . the wife, the girlfriend, the love interest.

   I have to work because it satisfies me and I can bring that to my children as someone who is more fulfilled. That's certainly not the case for everybody, but it's the case for me.

   Being a mother has certainly enriched my life unquestionably, regardless of my work. What we strive to do in the theatre is to tell stories that touch us on some level that as humans we can relate to . . . Watching my two children grow and watching them learn, these are experiences actors bring into our work, to inform our work so that what we do is real.

   She was this powerhouse, but she never made you feel less than, or inexperienced, or any of the millions of things I must have been.

   She's not sympathetic in the obvious sense, but I can't be afraid of being unsympathetic.

   I believe in the power of make-believe to enrich my life by allowing me to explore someone else's. Because it's in the power of inhabiting another's beliefs that I might get a glimmer of empathy. It can allow me to find compassion for those I find I am in opposition to.

   Those are monumental learning experiences. Better actors have theatre experience. It forces you into learning. How can that not make you better? I think it makes me a better performer.

   The business is shit. Acting is awesome.