Rachel Weisz

[on Darren Aronofsky] I guess the first impression was that I’d been a big admirer of his work, and then I met someone who you’d never have put with that work. There was something very refreshing about that. I thought I was going to meet someone who was very intense and weird.

I’m not one for parties and stuff like that. I get a bit nervous around lots of people. Being invisible is what I really enjoy. That I find quite entertaining.

I prefer being as far from the centre of celebrity as possible.

If it’s bad dialogue then I would think of nothing worse than the camera lingering on me and the person I’m talking to for fifteen minutes.

The celebrity thing… I don’t want to sound as if I absolutely don’t want it because that’s not true. If you’re in the entertainment business, you have to be honest. There’s something alluring about it…

If I went out in killer heels and full makeup, blow dry, the whole thing – anyone dressed up like that could be intimidating to men and women, really. It’s so, look at me. Do you know what I mean? But I love women.

When I was a kid I used to hide behind the curtains at home at Christmas and I used to try and be Elvis. There was a certain ambience between the curtains and the French windows, there was a certain sound there for a ten-year-old. That was all the ambience I got at ten years old…I think!

Contrary to popular myth, I didn’t just hatch out of an eagle’s nest, circa One Million Years B.C., clad in a doe-skin bikini. In fact, I was more surprised than anyone to find myself on location in such an exotic setting, high atop a volcanic mountain in the Canary Islands! With the release of that famous movie poster, in one fell swoop, everything in my life changed and everything about the real me was swept away. All else would be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life sex symbol.

Photoshop is just like makeup. When it’s done well it looks great, and when it’s overdone you look like a crazy asshole.

My mum and my dad are the sweetest couple.

I don’t see what the point is in growing up.

I would say my number one tip is to know that it’s okay to be in love with yourself. That’s not a bad thing. People might think it’s cocky, or arrogant, or selfish – no, that’s not what that means. Being in love with yourself is okay.

[on the NSA spying scandal] Mr. President, no one is saying you broke any laws, we’re just saying it’s a little bit weird you didn’t have to.

I’m very wary of talking about statements. I’m a storyteller, I’m an actor, an entertainer.

In Hollywood they say there’s no business like show business. In the hood they say there’s no business like ho’ business.

We all have a childhood dream that when there is love, everything goes like silk, but the reality is that marriage requires a lot of compromise.

[To Jimmy Webb] You’re really interested in a career? Wow, I just thought you were some guy who hung out in Las Vegas with Connie Stevens.

[In 1994] I wouldn’t offer $5 million to stop a book about me! It’s absurd. People will do anything for attention.

Oh but I’m serious this time. Take your American history books, burn them in the streets, they’re worthless after Tuesday. Why? The senate is up for grabs. I repeat – the f**king senate is up for grabs!

When it’s not your gig, you’re like, ‘I’m just gonna go to bed!’

You could put a blond wig on a hot-water heater and some dude would try to f**k it.