Rachel Weisz

I think mystery is kind of great. I don’t know anything about Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner – not really – and I like that. I love watching their movies because they’re my personal movie stars. I don’t know what they eat and who their trainer is.

As Ralph’s character begins to discover the political thriller aspect of the film, he falls deeper in love with his wife, so the two run together. That’s the beauty of this film. It has fast pace and excitement, but it also has heart and soul.

[on her parents] They’re very harsh critics and they’ve often said to me: “That was shit, you were crap’, but this is the first time (after he saw her as “Amy Foster” on Swept from the Sea) my father said to me: ‘I think one day you’ll be a good actress”!

I sometimes do worry that actors are people’s role models, you know. And doctors and teachers and people doing really important things just get paid nothing. And they put us on the cover of magazines. They should be our heroes. I find it all a bit dubious.

I don’t believe your soul mate has to share your politics.

I found myself a sophisticated, educated American. He’s not an actor. He’s traveled the world. He knows where Europe is, unlike a lot of Americans. He’s very cultured, but he’s all man.

I tend to lean on the side of pessimism and I wish I could be more optimistic. I wish I could be better at taking things for what they are – not analyzing them – but just going about my life.

I can’t believe we’ve got away with becoming this huge band. And we still haven’t done anything I think is that good yet.

[on the movie business] The battles that we face in this business aren’t financial, but they are moral. And I certainly think that the longer you can keep your values, and your morality intact, and keep your head on your shoulders about what is important at the end of the day, you can get the most out of this business and really emerge with something wonderful.

I was a little excited but mostly blorft. ‘Blorft’ is an adjective I just made up that means ‘Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.’ I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.

If you have paparazzi, you know you’ve gotten somewhere.

The idea of being in control for the sake of control is not really important to me. If everyone is sharp and doing what they’re doing well, you don’t really need to be in control all the time.

According to current Florida law you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following [the minor] and choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, get into a confrontation with them, and if at any point during that process you get scared you can shoot the minor to death, and the state of Florida will say, ‘Well, look: you did what you could.’

I realized that sometimes I move so fast I don’t even see where I’ve been with any great perspective. I look into the now and slightly into the future, but rarely into the past. Searching and querying and mining the great terrain of life and relationships is where I’m at right now.

We aren’t cool and never will be.

One of my friends was part of the popular group and I remember her telling them, ‘Come on, we should let Vanessa in.’ This one other girl didn’t want to let me into the group. Finally, I kind of got accepted and became good friends with her. I don’t know, the whole popularity scene is funny.

Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff? I’m not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons. I’m just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I’d like to cut your chest open. The crowd cheers.

Cotton Owens was leading and daddy was second. They came up on me and I moved over to let them pass. Cotton went on, but daddy bumped me in the rear and my car went right into the wall.

Nudity for fictional characters is as normal and mundane as eating breakfast. What bothers me is our culture’s obsession with nudity. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. I think this overemphasis with nudity makes actors nervous. There’s the worry about seeing one’s body dissected, misrepresented, played and replayed on YouTube.

I’ve changed so much. I’m not nearly as cocky as I was, I was a real prat for the first month. I didn’t talk to anyone. I just drank coffee and told everyone I was 24 and this famous theatre actor just back from South Africa.

Some of the best times in my life happened under the influence of drugs… I’d still be doing it if I could make good judgement calls. I’d still be doing it if I didn’t blow up to the size of an aircraft hangar, because it was a great time.