Rose Byrne

I just want to continue being able to get roles that scare me and make me better and I think I can only grow as an artist if I do things that are scaring me and making me uncomfortable because that’s the only place you’ll learn anything.

[on her role in “Star Wars: Episode II”] That was easy, I just stood by Natalie Portman looking very serious.

I guess you can get to a level where you choose. I guess when you reach that point maybe you start making decisions about whether you want to be a leading man or woman. I’m not at that point at all. Where I am now, you’re very much at everybody else’s mercy. You have no control over your career in a lot of ways. It’s just important to know what your own goals are, because that’s empowering.

[On her most dreadful crush] I used to drive, pretty pathetically, I’d just drive by their house all the time and they didn’t know who I was. I’d just drive by the house all the time. I once knocked on the window and I thought, “What am I doing? What am I going to say if they come to the door and don’t know who I am?”

[on Brad Pitt] I don’t know… I guess…. he’s a nice person and a GOOD kisser!

Here in L.A. the standard of beauty is kind of ridiculous. I want to be doing this when I’m in my fifties and sixties and this isn’t what I’m going to look like.

More idiots should just shut their mouths.

So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

I think London’s sexy because it’s so full of eccentrics.

I think maybe we (Queen) were subconsciously influenced by The Beatles’ albums, I think really, especially the later ones, like Rubber Soul, Revolver and Abbey Road. They were very eclectic albums.

Well, I don’t like the word ‘rock star,’ the two words, ‘rock star.’ Not even ‘soft rock star’. Not even limestone star. I don’t like those words.

I’m a flamboyant type of guy, a cooler version of Liberace.

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

If there are 10 people there, two or three are going to recognize you.

If you have your eye set on somebody, don’t beat around the bush.

Even people that know Johnny Cash’s music really well and know that he was married don’t really know that much about June Carter. So finding out about her really helped to inform my performance and to bring her to the front in a way that she has never been before.

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.

Ignorance is bliss? That’s bull, far as I’m concerned. Because I was making a half a cent a side – one penny for a record. It’s like building buses, for example. If you built this bus for me and I didn’t know anything about it, you could charge me whatever I’d pay for it. Now, which one of us is crazy? Me. And that’s the way they did me on the records. But I don’t fault them for it, because if you don’t know, you don’t know. It took me to learn.

I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.

My worst habit is speaking to much.

I have standards I don’t plan on lowering for anybody, including myself.