Rachel McAdams

I’ve discovered as I’ve grown up that life is far more complicated than you think it is when you’re a kid. It isn’t just a straightforward fairytale.

I guess you have to be really open to your acting partners and believe in the story.

My life comes to a screeching halt when I’m not making movies. I really like to ride my bike around town, garden, cook, and play ultimate frisbee.

[on which film had a bigger impact on her career – “The Notebook” or “Mean Girls”] For me personally it would be The Notebook. That was something I was dying to do when I read the script. I worked with so many amazing people and people responded so well to that film, and continue to. In terms of an impact on my career, that was significant. Mean Girls speaks to a really large audience, which is the kids and they eat that stuff up. I don’t know. It’s hard to choose.

The most romantic thing, a lovely boy bought me a dress once. He got my measurements, actually they were from “The Notebook” and I had them sitting somewhere, and he found them and bought me this dress, tailor-made, this beautiful little black cocktail dress. And I thought that was very, very classy.

As strange as movie making is, doing love scenes for the first time with someone you’ve never even said hello to does work in terms of having a fresh quality to a relationship

There’s not a lot of towns that I can go to and take family – too many incongruous knocks on doors – “Hello, honey. Have you missed me?”

Democracy is like a tambourine – not everyone can be trusted with it.’

Part of being a sex symbol is very flattering and it does help you get success in the business – but only to a point. You’re stuck with that moniker forever, and it does cloud people’s imagination. They just can’t see you being able to do anything else.

Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never mockeda disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him grovellingwhen he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!

This is truly a blessing. Breyon Prescott, Peter Edge and Tom Corson believe in me and have introduced me to a home that also believes and knows exactly what to do with the type of music I’m doing.

I took piano lessons when I was younger and I’ve been trying to learn how to play the guitar recently. I’d realy like to learn how to play the drums. They’re alot of fun and they require a lot of focus.

The girly movie I secretly love is Pippy Longstockings.

Yeah, I do also think that by the time you are in your forties, what you want to wear and what you think is sexy is not always, like, for another person. It’s what makes you feel good…. Sexy is all relative.

I like listening to good music – and I can’t stop playing my album.

And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, ’cause you can’t drink anymore. You can’t come home drunk and go, ‘Hey, here’s a little switch: Daddy’s gonna throw up on you!’

Being on tour is like being in limbo. It’s like going from nowhere to nowhere.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it.

Even when I was at ‘SNL,’ I didn’t do impersonations. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could do them – I always thought they were the coolest thing on the show – but I didn’t have any experience.

I’m just a regular girl. Some days I’m super strong; some days I’m super insecure. I just speak my truth and if people like it, they like it, and if they bash it, they bash it.

I’m my worst critic and I always want to give people something better than I gave them before.