Some of the roles that are challenging are more in theater and TV. In movies, there's a tendency to cast actors in roles that have been successful for them. It has to pay for itself.

There have been several television movies, 'Carrie 2,' two musicals! I remember thinking, the first time there was a musical on Broadway, 'Oh my gosh! The people who ordinarily go to the theaters, that's not really the audience.'

Movies aren't normally, necessarily viewed by a community of fans, and we thought if we could take the energy we see at our live performance and inject that into theaters, it might be a special thing.

We don't make movies for critics. I've done four movies; there's millions upon millions upon millions of people who've paid to see them. Somebody likes them. My greatest joy is to sit anonymously in a dark theater and watch it with an audience, a paying audience.

It has been my experience that work on the screen clarifies stage portrayals and vice versa. You learn to make your face express more in making movies, and in working for the theater you have a sense of greater freedom.

I was living in London and I thought, 'There's nothing here for me anymore.' I don't want to become this actor who's going to be doing this occasional good work in the theater and then ever diminishing bad television. I thought I'd rather do bad movies than bad television because you get more money for it.

I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people.

With 'Girls'... I feel like there's an impulse to try to make it look better or neater or more perfect, and when I watch theater, television, movies, it's always the imperfection I'm always more attracted to.

I read and watch movies. I can't go to the movie theater much anymore, though, because I get recognized. It's worse sometimes if I wear a costume and try not to get recognized. I watch most of my films on airplanes.

I'm not attracted to naturalism, I'm not attracted to behavior, I'm attracted to dance. I'm attracted to gesture, I'm attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I'm a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined movies.

Live theater to me is much more free than the movies or television.

I was very driven in high school. I worked a bunch of odd jobs. I never partied. I never drank. I was just a theater geek who was obsessed with movies.

There was never anything else I wanted to pursue. It was always theater, and movies are a fairly new thing.

I'm married to the theater but my mistress is the films.

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.

One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.

Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

Growing up in Canada, none of my family were performers or anything like that, but I was terrible at hockey, so they needed something for me to do on Saturdays for me to get out of the house. I signed up for theater school on Saturdays, and I'd go for four-and-a-half hours every Saturday morning and learn about theater.

I'd skip school regularly to see movies - even in the morning, in the small Parisian theaters that opened early.

I have too much money invested in sweaters.

Being creative and making money in the theater is very challenging.