SHANNYN SOSSAMON

Someone pays me a hundred bucks every Tuesday to DJ. I don't think I'll ever give that up.

I think the main thing I remembered throughout all of filming it was just that she just was extremely self-destructive. I think everybody can relate to that a little bit. She doesn't like herself.

I really want to keep at it until I find out what I'm capable of.

I was always interested in doing it, but I was so content with my life that I didn't really go after it.

I'm a film doll. But I'm enjoying it. So I'm gonna keep doing it.

Less Than Zero and American Psycho were both really different, so I was just like, Okay, he's just really doesn't have anything pleasant to say, you know? But I get it. I get at least why it's difficult and what he's really doing.

You know when there's someone new on the rise and there's too much hype? I didn't want that to be me.

Most of the auditions I went on, I passed up the projects because I just wasn't interested. When I read A Knight's Tale, that was that. I knew I wanted to do this movie.

I don't think I could live with myself if I stopped trying.

It's become like an urban myth. I don't know her. I don't know anybody she knows. I was standing there at the party by myself for an hour and then I left. Once I got those auditions, I worked really hard. Nobody did me any favors.

But I'm trying not to be cynical - I don't want to be one of those people who has a cool opportunity and blows it. It's really amazing what's happening to me.

Supporting a family and financial necessity aside, what I want is to read it and just have that feeling in your chest that you know you need to do it and you understand how you could get there, even if it scares you.

I'm a little bit more of a relaxed, lazy mother.

I think the emotional toolbox I have is healthy for an actor, as far as the intensity of emotions go. It's other things I have to hone. I can swim in that comfortably.

I'm really enjoying being an actor right now, at this point in my life. It's a great job, it's a huge responsibility, and I just want to do it more.

Televisison is like a factory line. You need discipline and focus. You have to hit your mark and know your lines. It's not that I don't know my lines when I do a film, but the pace of discovery is always a little bit more relaxed and nurturing and almost babying, in a way. Television toughens you up, and I like that, but I don't want it to toughen me up too much.

I was more wishy-washy in the first 12 years of my career, just because that was my personality.

I see in my friends that don't have kids, when they come over, and the amount of times our conversation gets interrupted by my children. It's almost jarring.

I did a film called The Jesuit, which was an independent film. I did that shortly after Mistresses. I was still feeling soft and I was nursing, but it was a character I'd never played before. That was a Paul Schrader script, with an up-and-coming Mexican director, named Alfonso Ulloa. That has Tim Roth and Paz Vega in it, and I enjoyed that, as well.

I was very soft. I gained a lot of weight with my second child and was very on the couch. And [my manager] said, "You know, this is a softer role [in Misteress]. She is a softer character. She's a lesbian that's always the passive half of the relationship."

I don't want to speak for all people who don't have children, but maybe there's a discomfort with kids and the amount of attention they demand, by just being the age that they are.

When I sign on to a television show, I have to love that show and character so much, but this [Mistresses] was in and out, for seven episodes. And it was nice to be able to make some money again because I hadn't work in a year and a half. There were a lot of pluses.

I'm reading and trying to find a television show that I really like, so I can start really working again and gain some momentum.

In every take, that you're not sure of what they're going to cut and paste together and what the arc or the purpose or the intention of your character's journey will be in the story. You don't have control. Sometimes that's wonderful, and sometimes that can be scary.

I did short film with Damian Lewis from Homeland, that was a really incredible experience. He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with. Even though that's a short film for Jaguar that's really, in essence, a commercial, it didn't feel like it, at all.