Show business is just like high school, except you get paid.
Hollywood is a strange, strange thing. I feel like I've been invited to a very exclusive ball and I'm just trying to make nice with everybody and hope that if they kick me out they'll at least give me a ride home.
But I've never felt that being an actress is being in a comfortable place. It's seen from the outside that we're being driven in big cars and having these gorgeous suites and all of that. But come on, it's not about that.
Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.
But I often think that so-called glamorous people are just very busy people.
The only thing I think I can be accused of about paparazzi is being really naive. I didn't think about it coming along with the job and I never, during my three years at drama school, fantasized about one bit of it.
In the adverts, I look like I do because 150 people have spent seven hours making me look dazzling. That's not me at all.
I was supposedly living this glamorous life, but I was crippled by the idea of growing old and where do I go next? The whole age thing—in our industry, it's everything.
I feel like a lot of people think of Hollywood as being fake, but it's only perceived that way because it takes 10 people to make someone look the way that they do. In reality, they're there because they are doing what they're passionate about.
Seeing someone happy on set is just a very small slice of the reality of an actor's life.
People have this view, 'Oh, you're in movies, your life is so glamorous' but it can really suck.
Friends think your life is so glamorous, and it is. But there are times when, instead of going to a glamorous party, I would rather just come home from work, pop in a DVD and eat some microwave popcorn with a cutie on the sofa.
From the outside, there's a lot of glitz. They see you on the red carpet, but they don't see what it takes to get there.
Acting is not glamorous. It's not. Anybody who wants to get into acting for the glamour is in for a hard time.
I've worked with a lot of great glamorous girls in movies and the theater. And I'll admit, I've often thought it would be wonderful to be a femme fatale. But then I'd always come back to thinking that if they only had what I've had - a family, real love, an anchor - they would have been so much happier during all the hours when the marquees and the floodlights are dark.
I think there's a perception out there that people know me based on these glamorous photos they see of me in magazines, but I have about two hours of hair and makeup and then people to dress me, to make me look even better, in those pictures.
I listened to a clip someone had put up of me singing 'I Am What I Am' in the musical 'La Cage aux Folles.' I thought I was absolutely dreadful. It's like when you see photos of yourself at parties - at the time you thought you looked so cool and glamorous but you just look a bit drunk.
Once, when I was 14 I thought easily the most glamorous thing was white eyeliner inside the eye and then heavy lip liner round the mouth. I think I looked repellent.
