AMY ADAMS

I love accents - I wish I could find an accent for every one of my characters. It makes it so much easier when I don't have to hear my own voice.

I'm really good at gymnastics, and that's about it.

Most of the time it's the parents who recognise me. They try to tell their kids, 'Look, it's Giselle,' and I say, 'No, no, no, don't ruin this for them,' because I'm usually standing there with my hair sideways and no make-up on. And the kid is saying, 'That is not Giselle. No way. That is some worn-out girl who really needs a bath.'

I was the dork in high school who sang musical numbers up and down the hallways.

Being an actress hasn't made me insecure. I was insecure long before I declared I was an actress.

I'm pretty Sicilian if I've been crossed. I don't seek revenge, but I never forget. And I make it hard to repair, which is not a great quality because if people held me to that standard, no one would be around me - ever.

How I work is I work from of very character-driven place. And I trust the writers.

My natural response to a stressful situation is to shut down. I do weird things, like, I don't cry, I get really cold.

Once I moved to L.A., there was a dark moment of trying to keep up with the girls I thought were pretty. Until I realised that's the stupidest thing you can do because people are so pretty in L.A.!

I'm much more comfortable speaking through my characters' voices than my own.

My dad is a singer. He used to sing in nightclubs, or pizza joints.

I find that it's the simple things that remind you of family around the holidays.

That's how I prepare for anything - I read whatever I can get my hands on, talk to people. I'm a bit of a nerd like that.

As an actress people always tease me like: if there's anything you can do to make yourself unattractive you will do it.

My job as an actress is to make things work and come up with reasons of my own and not just fill in the blanks for anybody else, you know what I mean?

I think the kick to doing comedy is just to get in a film with really funny people and let them do their jobs. I find that in most comedies, I'm not the funny one, which works out great.

If I had a project that I had auditioned for and I was getting close to getting it, I didn't want to tell anybody because I thought then I wouldn't get it, but in reality that really had no bearing on whether or not I got a part.

I'm not the kind of actress who asks a lot of questions of my directors unless it's something I really need to know.

I was one of seven, and we took a lot of road trips - long road trips. And this was before iPhones and iPads and DVD players in cars. I remember how novel it was when I got my own Walkman so I could listen to music.

I was a pretty scrappy, tough kid; I got in all sorts of fights at school. I defended myself - boys didn't mess with me. But as one of seven children, you have to fight for everything anyway.

I'm just grateful I didn't have to spend my early 20s in front of paparazzi cameras.

It's always challenging when you're shooting a film. Shooting things out of order and keeping continuity on all levels is always for me the most challenging thing.

I thought 'Out of Africa' would be a beautiful ballet.

I'm like the luckiest girl in the world. I've gotten to be a princess, I've gotten to work with the Muppets. A lot of my childhood dreams about who I wanted to be when I was a grown-up, I at least get to play them in movies.

Moving out to L.A. for me was a leap of faith. I was very secure in my dinner theater world; I loved it, and I was just like, 'I think there's something else out there for me and I just have to go for it.'