Quotes About Acting

I always seem to love the shows with cops. I really want to play a cop - I want a badge and a gun. I'd love to do a guest spot on 'Breaking Bad' or 'Castle.' I think 'Once Upon a Time' is a great time. Fun stuff. I like to have fun with characters.

Having shaved my head for the role put a spotlight on me.

I'm just not one of those naturally funny, relaxed actors who enjoy the spotlight and are so good at it.

I've really gotten to play a lot of different things, starting with 'Southpaw.' For 'Spotlight,' I got to play this amazing journalist, Sacha Pfeiffer, who worked at the 'Boston Globe' when they broke the story about the sex scandal in the Catholic Church.

What I really want to do is comedy. I would love to do some guest star spots on some single-camera comedies.

Actors are always weird about acting with their spouse or their boyfriend or girlfriend, but more because they think audiences will find it boring.

As an actress, it is so easy to spread happiness with just a smile. That is a gift I will always cherish.

I did 'Spring Awakening' on Broadway for about three years, and I did over 500 performances.

Shows I would love to do one day are definitely In the Heights' and Spring Awakening,' with Nina and Wendla, respectively, as my top dream roles.

Soaps are a great springboard for any actor but if you want to be taken seriously, you have to be careful.

There was a time during 'Gone Girl' that I'd come home, and I'd say, 'I get to be every part of being a woman in this role.' For me, I feel it much more as a springboard for the work I'm going to take on thereafter.

In terms of my development as an artist, playing Professor Sprout wasn't all that important because she is well within my capabilities as an actress. But in terms of marketability, it made an enormous difference.

I had such a good time working with Paul Feig on 'Spy.'

I was Gerti Giggles in 'Spy Kids.'

Because I'm not a spy in 'Spooks' and I'm not in every day I'm able to do other things, which is great fun because it breaks it all up for me and I get some time to spend with my daughter.

There's different ways of getting into character. There's what's called 'the outside,' in which is finding the physicality of the character first. To give an example, in 'Gettin' Square' - Johnny Spitieri - that's how I found that character. I knew those people that I'd seen up at Kings Cross. I knew how they sounded.

When I'm on set, I'm always waiting around for people to move the cameras so I can try to squeeze in press-ups and sit-ups between scenes.

I had to make squirrel noises as Bubbles and without realizing it, I was making the face and putting my fingers up to my face to look like a squirrel and everyone made fun of me for the rest of the day.

T.V. acting is a great skill to have, and it's nice to have that stability.

I like playing someone with a certain stability at the periphery of the madness.

Acting never was about the money for me... Maybe in 10 years, I'll be able to appreciate the fact that I am financially stable and independent and I don't have to make bad choices. I can be very picky.

I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.

I am very lucky that I came from a stable home, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life until acting sorted of landed in my lap when I was in my 20s. Acting, to me, was a bit like the ladder I used to climb out of feeling lost.

I don't have a stack of scripts.