“I miss playing Lincoln. Very much. I miss the proximity to his character. There was a time in my life when it wasn’t clear whether or not I would amount to anything. I was fearful about my future. In England, people were hell-bent on certifying me—to them, the way I work as an actor is the system of someone who is unhinged. As a young man, when I saw the early movies by Scorsese, I saw a way to be, a kind of liberation. In those movies, America seemed like a place of infinite opportunities. In Lincoln, we tried to show that sense of grand democratic possibility. We created a world I didn’t want to leave.”
“I never get recognized on the street. I’m lucky that way. People see me as the dolled-up movie-star type on the red carpet, but in real life, I don’t look anything like that. I blend easily into a crowd. My husband, Liev Schreiber, is really distinct, and quite often people push me aside to get to him. They’ll say, ‘Isn’t that the guy…?’ and list off all his credits. They will then ask, ‘Can you take a photo of us?’ They have no idea who I am.”
“My first official performance was at summer camp, and I played the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz. That sounds like a great part because the play is called The Wizard of Oz, but let’s face it: He doesn’t have a lot of stage time. He’s mostly hiding behind a big wizard facade. But it was the beginning, and I got the fever. When I was 12 or 13, I landed a commercial for a video game called Pitfall! I walked around school the cock of the walk, just feeling like the coolest thing ever. That lasted for a couple of days, and then it wore off and people didn’t think I was a rock star anymore. I started pushing my parents: ‘C’mon, drive me to some auditions! I want to be on TV again.’ ”
“I have a crush on Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas. He was my type of guy, especially when I was a kid. I was totally in love with him. I wanted to go anywhere with Harry Dean Stanton: Texas, Paris, whatever, wherever.”
“The first movie I remember seeing is All That Jazz. My mother, who is an actress, took me. All That Jazz is pretty strong for a 5-, 6-year-old kid, but I loved it. There were naked women, which was nice. In Spain, we understand sex better than violence.”
“Everyone asks about the nude scenes in On the Road, but I also had to dance, and dancing is harder than being naked. My character, Marylou, is so exuberant, and I had five minutes to do something that showed she was sort of like the craziest motherfucker around. In the book, it says, ‘Dean takes Marylou and they do a love dance and no one can take their eyes off them.’ It’s one sentence. And I was mad-intimidated by it. We did the dance four times to the song ‘Salt Peanuts.’ By the end, I was as red as a fire truck. I was holding onto Garrett [Hedlund] because I was going to fall over. I almost passed out every single time.”