When you spend many hours a week working with the same people - I mean television operates on really amazing hours and the gift of that is the trust that you feel and the intimacy that you feel with the people who you're working with.

Real quality in roles is very hard to come by. Any actor or actress will tell you that. Great movies are hard to come by. It's almost impossible to make one, and most people have to settle for making something less.

I've never directed, but it must be humbling.

I think that my looks through the years have served me well because I was never a great beauty and I was never cast as a great beauty. My looks were not part of my transportation - certainly not in the typical leading lady role - so I never leaned on it and I never really made that a high value.

It's not the dress ... it's the way you see me.

Mothers and daughters can stay very connected during teenage years. In the middle of your life, you can become very alone. Even though you're connected deeply to other family members, lovers, husbands, friends.

More and more movies have been pressured to allow reporters and TV cameras to come onto the set while you're working, and I find that a real violation

I get cold really quickly, but I don't care. I like weather. I never understand why people move someplace so that they can avoid weather.

It's the same with people knowing absolutely everything there is to know about an actor. I actually think the more personal information you have about an actor, the more you have to carve out for yourself when you go to a movie and see them in it

Drama is always conflict. Conflict either comes from within or without. The thing that makes a show different is the conflict manifests itself both internally and externally.

I think it's really odd, too, that the public is so privy to how much money the actors make and what movies cost. It seems to me to be beside the point. When I go to a movie I really don't want to think about the money. I want to see the story.

In some ways, it would be nice to stay younger, but I feel pretty happy about growing older... Personally, I don't have a lot of the regular hand-ups with getting older that some people do. I've never tried to disguise my age. People find out anyway.