I used to smoke two packs a day and I just hate being a nonsmoker…. but I will never consider myself a nonsmoker because I always find smokers the most interesting people at the table.

About herself and her own nature

When once asked if she was Swedish of heritage | “I’m kind of a mutt, part Swedish, German, Dutch, Irish and Swiss, but sometimes I am a little mad, like the Swedes. They always seem to have a secret, like they’re hiding something, I’ve been accused of that, like I’m holding in some secret.

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “I always have this nagging fear of failure-that I am going to be found out, that I am an impostor, that this is the movie they will discover it on.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “I’m not a sunny kind of person. My basic nature is rather serious. I’ve never found that to be terribly interesting. I’ve always wanted to be more lighthearted, and I’ve become more so-with a lot of effort.”

Esquire – December, 1990 | “What can I say, I’m a mess”

Esquire – December, 1990 | “I’m really impatient with myself. I’ve always been this way. I’ve always wanted everything yesterday. My basic nature is dark. My essence. That doesn’t mean that I’m that way all the time, but that’s where I work from most often in my life. I always believe that I can do everything, and handle everything, and keep all these balls in the air, and then I don’t understand why I’m hysterically crying at the end of the day and why I feel overloaded and can’t sleep. It’s my greatest asset and my greatest curse-that I’m so fucking self-sufficient.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “There are participants in life and there are observers, and I’ve always been an observer.”

Esquire – December, 1990 | “Nothing is halfway with me. If I were Sean Penn, I would have killed someone by now. If I had the male instinct, the male aggression, I would be in jail. I have shoved these people-the paparazzi. Really shoved them.”

Life – June, 1982 | Promoting Grease 2 | “It’s important that people not think I’m stuck-up”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | “I’m not going into hiding like Greta Garbo, besides, I can’t? my husband’s famous, what am I gonna do?”

About her physique

Interview – August, 1988 | “When I was a child I looked like a duck… I still look like a duck. I should have been Howard the Duck”

Interview – August, 1988 | “My eyes are always bloodshot”

Premiere – September , 1988 | “I have to be really honest, and I don’t know how this is gonna sound. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that I was extraordinary-looking. In fact, I know that I’m not. If anything, I’ve always felt that I was conventionally pretty, which is an asset in some ways, and in some ways now. It’s a really hard subject to talk about, you know, it’s like one of those things where you’re fucked either way.”

People Weekly – May, 1999 | “A person’s looks are a double-edged sword. Sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it works against you. Some people peak when they’re 12 and some when they’re 30.”

People Weekly – May, 1999 | “Ten years ago I did nothing beauty-wise, I smoked cigarettes, ate whatever I wanted and used bar soap on my face. People were horrified by how I treated my skin, the maintenance is just way out of control. I’ll use sunscreen and have regular manicures now, and I never used to do that. Now it takes me so long to go to bed or get out of the house.”

People Weekly – May, 1999 | “I’m not unhappy with the way I look now, I have a few more lines and things, but fortunately my husband likes old women!”

People Weekly – May, 1999 | “All I really care about is that I’m able to age gracefully and that I don’t ever look like a wax figure of myself.”

About acting

Esquire – December, 1990 | While she worked as a checkout girl at a Vons supermarket in El Toro. She was 18 | “I was frustrated and aimless and asked myself, What are you going to do with your life? And the answer I came up with, the only thing I really wanted to do, was acting.”

Interview – August, 1988 | “I’d like to play a bag lady”

Premiere – September, 1988 | About playing comedies, in estance Married to the Mob (1988) | “I don’t think I’m funny. I never think I’m funny, and I’m always in these comedies. See, I don’t know how this happens, or why this happens, but I always end up playing the heart of the piece. Like, in a comedy, I always end up playing the anchor, the person whose job is to be believable. And not necessarily funny. Happens to me all the time.”

Interview – August, 1988 | “If there’s a lot demanded of you, working can be very sexually fulfilling. It depends on the movie, on the part.”

Interview – August, 1988 | “Almost daily I say to myself, why are you doing this? There are movies that I have done, people that I’ve worked with, performances I’ve given that make me say, “That’s why I’m doing this.” There are certain scenes you do in a movie that are like catching a wave, and you leave work feeling elated–almost as though you’ve purged something. That’s rare, but you do live for those moments.”

Interview – August, 1988 | “I think I have a sadomasochistic streak, because acting is kind of brutal”

Interview – August, 1988 | “I can be a difficult actress, but most of the time I’m not. I think I was difficult on The Witches of Eastwick, but I feel there have been very few times when I’ve been difficult”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | “There are lots of things I can do, but I don’t think I can play an ingenue; I can’t be 20 anymore.”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | “I’m at an age now where I’m right to play a mother and have a family; it would make sense that those things would reoccur. I don’t really feel limited, or that I can’t be sexy. I don’t. I take projects because I like them. And I can certainly do a love story.”

About getting an Oscar

Zap2it – Toronto Film Festival – October, 2002 | About if “White Oleander” will get her an Oscar | “No, they’ll think that I look too pretty while I’m in prison, I think, I don’t think it will be nominated.”

About the stardom

Esquire – December, 1990 | “I acts for free but demand a huge salary as compensation for all the annoyance of being a public personality.”

Esquire – December, 1990 | “I earn every fucking dime I make. I can afford to go anywhere in the world I want to go. On the other hand, I have no idea who’s going to be there waiting for me when I get off the plane. Am I going to have to be self-conscious of how I look because I’ve been drooling or something and my eyes are all puffy and red?”

Esquire – December, 1990 | “Your life doesn’t belong to you anymore. Every minute of every day, you feel as if a million eyes are on you. You’re never allowed to just be yourself. And, for me, it’s not worth it I hate it I don’t know how long I can take it. I don’t even know if I want to.”

About Interviews

Esquire – December, 1990 | “I become paralyzed when I have to make small talk. I’m really horrible at it. All I can do is hope that I won’t run out of questions to ask the other person, so I can keep the conversation off myself. Which is why I’m not good at interviews. I tend to go right into the heart of things, and get really personal. Then afterward I read them and I think, Aw, shit. Why the fuck can’t you just shut your mouth?”

About Hollywood

Interview – August, 1988 | “I don’t really know what Hollywood is. I’ve never really known.”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | “People have this notion that Hollywood is sort of wild and crazy and amoral, but it’s tame compared to what I see going on in some of the neighborhoods I grew up in.”

About the roles she’s done

Interview – August, 1988 | About working in Scarface (1983) | “It was a hard movie for me because Grease 2 had been my last credit, and I was really terrified. I was very excited to work with Al Pacino, but I was also intimidated by him. Other than me and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, it was all men. I had to play a very cold and aloof woman–very different from my personality and a difficult character for me to hold on to”

Interview – August, 1988 | About the Ladyhawke script (1984) | “When I read the Ladyhawke script, the idea of playing a beautiful princess romping through the woods was not my idea of a good part. That’s the way it was written. I didn’t want to be running around in a flowing white gown, with long tresses hanging down. Initially, Donner wanted I did that, but then he changed his mind, I think.”

Premiere – September, 1988 | Her doubts to take the part in Ladyhawke (1984) | “I almost didn’t do the movie, I didn’t want to play this little princess running around in the woods. Then I spoke with Dick Donner, and he said that wasn’t how he saw the character. He wanted to cut my hair off real short, like Joan of Arc, and I thought that was interesting; and I just loved the script so much. I agreed to do the picture because it was one of the most charming, sweet scripts I had ever read.”

Premiere – September, 1988 | About The Witches of Eastwick (1987) | “The first time I saw it, I hated it. It was so different than the way I had envisioned it. The original script was more of a dark comedy, as opposed to… there were no special effects; there wasn’t all of that flying in the air. For me, what was interesting about it was how it played on a psychological level: the power play between men and women.”

Premiere – September, 1988 | Capturing and learning her Angela’s role in Married to the Mob (1988) | “I met some great gals out in Long Island. They’re fantastic. The Press-On Queens.” [She shifts into her Angela voice.] “Cawla and Anna Maria. They were sistuhs. And Cawla was a hairdresser, and she was going to be getting her own chair. We talked about nails, we talked about hair, we talked about makeup.” [She goes back to her own voice.] “They were great. I wanted to be more like them after I’d met them. There’s a certain art in really enjoying life that’s in everything they do.”

Married to the Mob Press Kit – 1988 | About her role | “I frankly like Angela more than I like myself. She’s a lot more fun than I am. I am so disgustingly serious”

Esquire – December, 1990 | About her experiencie in Russia filming The Russia House (1990) | “I understood for the first time in my life how people could just give up. I’ve hit some lows in my life. But I never gave up hope.”

About her partners at the movies

Interview – August, 1988 | About Matthew Broderick in Ladyhawke (1984) | “I never knew what a goofo Matthew was until I met him”

Interview – August, 1988 | About Jack Nicholson in The Witches Of Eastwick (1987) | “Jack was an angel. Jack, with all the knowledge he has, never oversteps the boundaries of his job”

About the directors she’s worked with

Interview – August, 1988 | About Brian De Palma in Scarface (1983) | “Well, there’s a lot of talk and a lot written about Brian’s views on women and all that, in his movies he’s always killing women. People tend to think that means he has a warped view of women, but I found the exact opposite to be true. I found him generous and very gentle; I liked working with him very much.”

Interview – August, 1988 | About Jonathan Demme in Married To The Mob (1988) | “Jonathan has, first of all, a great deal of respect for every single person working on a movie. He lets everybody contribute, and I think that’s because he’s secure enough so that he doesn’t think that everything has to be his idea. He allows other people’s ideas to come in. At the same time he never loses his overview or control of the picture, so I never feel like I’m out there all alone, and I don’t end up mistrusting him.”

Esquire – December, 1990 | About Robert Towne in Tequila Sunrise (1988) | “What I look for in a director is freedom, and that’s not what I got from Bob. It was a matter of chemistry.”

About being a producer

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | About the box-office of One Fine Day | “One Fine Day was the first time I allowed myself to get caught up in numbers and expectations, I don’t usually do that. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. When that happened, it was such a shock. I learned I was right not to buy into hype. But as a producer, it’s hard to detach.”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | Reason to don’t come back to produce | “I feel more peaceful with acting; that’s where I get my reward,”

About her childhood and teeneager

Esquire – December, 1990 | “My life’s ambition was to be Tina Louise.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “And I was a real tomboy. I wasn’t a terribly feminine little girl. I never thought I was attractive to boys; I remember when the first boy liked me, I couldn’t believe it. All the little girls with ringlets and crinoline dresses were the ones the boys liked. I was always beating them upwhy should they like me? I was always the biggest girl in the class, and if somebody wanted someone beat up, they’d come and get me. I was the school bully. No wonder I played Catwoman. It all comes full circle.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “I was just a delinquent. I was always in trouble; I was never in school. The only class I didn’t cut on a regular basis was theater. I was with the surfers. I went to the beach. The girls laid out and baked in the sun and the boys surfed. I was a party girl.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “I never read all the things people were reading in high school; I was going to the beach and getting stoned. I just read The Catcher in the Rye five years ago. I always have this feeling like I’ll never catch up, reading the classics and everything. It’s not so much catching up with other people; it’s more for myself, feeling like I’m missing out, and that I’ll never get it all done in this lifetime.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “I’m really glad now that I had that rebellious spirit, I think it’s one of the biggest influences on my success. It’s why I moved away from home”

Life – June, 1982 | “I liked surfers. I spent most of my time hanging out at the beach. If a guy had a body like a V, blond hair and blue eyes, that’s all he needed. My father used to get frustrated because I always went for love. None of my boyfriends had any money”

About her early years in Hollywood

Premiere – September, 1988 | During the filming if Delta House (1979) | “I used to call up my agent, crying on the phone: ‘They’re putting me in hot pants again.’ I had two sets of falsies on. Here they were presenting me like I’m this sexy thing, and I was thinking, ‘What if people don’t think I’m sexy? I’m gonna look like an asshole.’”

Premiere – September, 1988 | “Even though the films that I was doing weren’t exactly what I ideally wanted, each time I made a choice, I made sure it was something a little better than the last one.”

Esquire – December, 1990 | “I remember that I used to get on the phone with Ellen Barkin. We were both unemployed. Nobody would hire us. Every part that we wanted, Debra Winger would steal. We could not get a job and we’d be hysterical for hours on the phone, bitching and moaning and kvetching.”

About her family

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | About her mother | “She always wanted me to have a career. She always said, ‘I don’t care when you get married,’ but she thought it was very important that I live on my own first and have a career. I was raised with a man’s work ethic.”

About David E. Kelley (her husband)

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | About how she told him that she had decided to adopt a baby | “When he started dating me, that wasn’t part of the deal. All of a sudden, we’re in bed one night, and I said, ‘Oh, by the way. . .’ He was a bit stunned, a bit awed. It took a little getting used to. But he respected what I was doing very much. He’s completely besotted, utterly crazy about her. “

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | About the early times in their relationship | “He’s always been amazingly patient with the sordid nature of being a celebrity. Sometimes you can be with someone who kind of resents you a little bit. David was never, ever like that.”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | “He doesn’t really need advice from me. If anything, I could take a few tips from him.”

About Fisher Stevens (ex-boyfriend)

People Weekly – July, 1992 | She told her father when she met Fisher Stevens | “Dad, Fisher makes me laugh. The others made me cry”

About the adoption

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | Explaining the reasons to adopt | “I had been ready to be a mother for a very long time. I’m 35. I have spent more than a third of my life being independent and leading this narcissistic existence where everything is about me, and it’s boring already. I was just ready for a change. “

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | About the decision before to adopt | “When I made the decision, I didn’t sleep for two weeks. I thought, Holy shit! Are you nuts? This is not like a house you decide to buythis is something serious! But the last month I was like an expectant mother: I’m ready, the nursery is ready, I have all my books, I want the baby here now. Every day was like Chinese water torture. And every step of the way, everything pointed to the fact that it was such a right decision.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “It was the most important thing I’ll ever do in my life, and I wanted time by myself to get used to it,”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “I wanted this child to know who her mother was”

About her children

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | About Claudia Rose | “She’s the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | About the different racial identity her of Claudia Rose | “It will become an issue for her later, and that’s something I certainly have to think about and prepare myself for. It will take a lot more education on my part to know how to help her deal with certain prejudices that may arise and certain situations that may arise that I haven’t had in my own experience. But I love what she is and what she represents, and I think it’s something we need to see more of.”

Harper’s Bazaar – October, 1999 | About being mother | “Everyone tells you how great parenthood is. It’s harder than you ever imagined; it’s also better than you ever imagined.”

About Armani

First Rodeo Drive Walk of Style Award – September 9, 2003 | “Giorgio is a man who graces the fashion world with his style and dignity, prioritizing class over outrageousness. In a day when so many designers want you to notice their creations, with Giorgio it’s always been about flattering the people who wear them.”

About the surgical intervention

Esquire – December, 1990 | “Now, that’s pretty scary. I don’t get it. I really don’t. I mean, my face is completely crooked. People accuse me of having a nose job. They accuse me of having my lips injected. First off, I would have gotten a straight nose instead of this thing. My lips are lopsided.”

Vanity Fair – September, 1993 | “So far I haven’t succumbed, but I’m very conflicted about face-lifts and all that, I understand the pressure to do it. You look in the mirror and think, She’s 40, and she looks so much better than I do!-and then you remember all the work she’s had done on her face. I used to say, ‘Absolutely not! Never, never, never!’ But people say, ‘Never say never.’ I don’t judge women harshly anymore who have done it, and yet it perpetuates the pressure. If you can get another five years from a good face-lift. . . “