I went off and read the books after the audition and I read all four books in one sitting - you know - didn't wash, didn't eat, drove around with them on the steering wheel like a lunatic. I suddenly understood why my friends, who I'd thought where slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children's books. They're like crack.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.

I don't know if it's a romantic comedy but I'm in the beginning of the first of the season of The West Wing. We shot it last year. I don't know. If anyone asks me to be in one, I'll jump on it.

Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me.

I went to university and I was a bit out of my depth, socially.

I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives. Really. I mean hideously compromised lives. And I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am.

I damaged my Achilles tendon, so I can't run.

It's just really, really beautiful. Each scene is one long 15 minute take without cutting. My scene is with Robin Wright-Penn so I'm pretty excited about that.

It seems a bit weird to call someone your girlfriend when you have a child.

I think I was probably always a liar I just get paid for it now.

I could release myself into acting in a way that I was not released socially.

I think this show I'm going to do,' Awake,' if it's done well, will not only be provocative and entertaining, but help people. I want to do that.

I would love to tell you I've found the secret to eternal youth. I go to the gym and avoid too many chips. I love to eat, hate to work out, but if you can't count all your ribs from a distance you're considered obese.

I'm at the beginning of it. I'm Elektra's last job before the story kicks off.

I am not a sex symbol.

God, I hate interviews with actors pouncing on. Who wants to know about their lives? I don't want to know about Al Pacino's life.

The weird job of acting is that it is so simple. You just see the person in the situation. It is whatever you have to do to get there. Some people want to stay up all night or cut their toe off. For me it is a bunch of reading, and hanging out with real people, I do that. You never know what you are going to get. It might be the shoes people wear.

Acting is a really simple job - it's just hard to do. You just have to be that person with their background in that situation. That's all it is. My kids do it all the time when they're dressing up and playing games.

Acting is usually regarded as a wholly narcissistic pursuit but there really is a hunger in me to unravel the human condition.