Reese Witherspoon

We each own one car, and we have a reasonable house. It’s a lovely place to be, but it’s not extravagant.

That said, my kids are at home right now with my husband and I’m missing something important at my daughter’s school which makes me feel sick inside. It’s a lot of balance and a lot of really hard decision making.

[on the harsh standards placed on women by Hollywood] It’s one of those endless competitions, but it’s like running a race toward nothing. “There’s no winning. You’re never going to win the thin race. You’re never going to win the pretty race. You’re never going to win the smart race. You’re never going to win the funny race. I just want to be the best version of myself I can be.

There’s something timeless and important about making people laugh, about being the right spot in their day.

[asked about the ways she is discriminated against] I get discriminated against in three ways: I get discriminated against because I’m blond, I get discriminated against because I’m an actress and I get discriminated against because I’m from the South.

[on motherhood] I feel good, I’m proud of Election (1999) and very proud of this (her child). It couldn’t be a better time. It’s always the right time when it happens. You make it the right time.

We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill. Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more.

[On husband Ryan Phillippe] I don’t think I can imagine a better guy than the one I’ve ended up with.

I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.

I have two daughters, and we live here in Manhattan, and having gone through the Manhattan kindergarten application process, nothing will ever rival the stress of that.

I believe I was definitely sent down here to take people away for a little while, to make them happy.

I may have had a crush on Zac, but we are like brother and sister, so nothing would ever happen.

Ladies gotta say no to their husbands at the movies. They gotta say: ‘No, we are watching back-to-back cancer movies. And then this movie about a cat.’

Okra is the closest thing to nylon I’ve ever eaten. It’s like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.

[asked about the ways she is discriminated against] I get discriminated against in three ways: I get discriminated against because I’m blond, I get discriminated against because I’m an actress and I get discriminated against because I’m from the South.

I saw Buddy Rich playing. He was wonderful, fantastic. I would say of just sheer technique he’s the best I’ve ever seen.

His (Freddie Mercury) words got better quickly. There were some very overt lyrics. Don’t Stop Me Now is a good example. He was having a good time, and that was very much a cri de coeur. Some lyrics we wrote together like I’m Going Slightly Mad, which was funny. We had fun coming up with daft things, all those ridiculous phrases. I’d say it was Freddie’s actual musicality which was the cleverest thing of all, the notes, and his harmonic structure was quite brilliant. When he wrote The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, on the second album, he was crossing sections of six-part harmonies, and I thought: “Bloody hell, that is tricky stuff.” Then there’s The March Of The Black Queen, which is almost like prog-rock, and so outrageously complicated that I can’t even remember the arrangement myself. When you write songs that complex, you have to work hard at it, and it did invoke a lot of head-scratching. But then he’d come up with Killer Queen or, later on, lots of simple things like Crazy Little Thing. He had it on all sides. Freddie evolved. I always called him ‘the man who invented himself’. I think the talent was innate, but he dug deep inside himself and forced it out. His determination was quite something.

[on filming Red Eye] I loved the action sequences, running though an airport in heels and all that stuff. That was really fun.

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.

I am looking for a man I couldn’t beat in a cage fight.

I see myself more as a character actress than a celebrity!