Acting is a freelance career... you never stop having to prove yourself and fight for work.
Miranda Otto
You do remember things that people say in movies. You remember particular lines and things that are funny. But, you also remember really strong images. Images have a way of bypassing your brain and hitting you emotionally.
Sitting down for the actor read when you first get together, it's like the Last Supper because you don't know who will be there for the next read.
I hate being pigeon-holed into anything. To me, the best thing is when the next job comes and is completely different to the one that I just had.
When I was working on 'Homeland,' there was a consultant who helped me a lot... I went to Washington and met with my consultant there, and he actually organised a lunch with several people from the Intelligence Committee.
Soho House is normally a private-members club, but the Berlin one has a hotel open to the public. Many beautiful rooms in a cool location, and who knows who you'll run into in the lobby!
As actors, we are accustomed to moving around, and it's always great to live and work in a city - you feel like you are truly living a life there.
It's so great to come in and do something where you know how strong the format of the show is and you're working with writers and directors who worked on the original show. It feels like you're going into a well-run ship already. Then it's just a matter of creating these new characters.
I was researching my family tree, and I was deeply hoping I was going to turn out to be Eastern European, but I'm not.
There are so many successful women working in intelligence, but it's still seen as a male-dominated world.
Yes, I like doing TV. I like the idea of going to work with the same people.
There's a film I did years ago, 'Love Serenade,' that I still really love. It's such an oddball sense of humor. It was a really special film for me when I did it.
I think, with TV, you create kind of a family to work with.
The whole theatre world deeply attracts me. I love rehearsing and having time to make mistakes and laugh and discover things about yourself and other people - and the energy level is great.
I enjoyed playing someone who is a professional, intelligent, defined by her work and not her role as a wife or mother.
There are so many things from movies that are remembered, that are just looks on people's faces or incredible vistas or beautiful pictures. That is a very important part of cinema.
That is definitely something that I feel more comfortable with now. When I did 'Lord of the Rings,' it was something I wasn't quite prepared for, I didn't know how to deal with that sort of attention, and I kind of shied away from that, but I'm better at dealing with that now - a lot better.
I haven't found the experience of being hot very great. It usually means you are about to be overexposed. I would rather be respected.
People often say, 'I thought you were much taller.' So, I don't know. Maybe it's the way I stand or something.
In everything I do, I like to set the idea for girls that they can do anything. I was really moved by Hillary Clinton's speech when she lost the election - she didn't want young girls to feel like it wasn't possible and wanted them to know a female president will eventually happen. That's important.
I think most big stars do have just a certain amount of mystery; you don't know everything.
The detective genre is not easy because you've got to get to a conclusion that is unexpected.
I grew up seeing a lot of theatre, and it was theatre that really seduced me into acting - not film or television.
I just feel like TV takes more risks than film. Film has gotten very safe: it's very compartmentalized about what type of things will be successful. And whereas in TV, since all these new platforms opened, they're saying to writers, go out there, write the most different show that you can write. Write something that's really original and different.
There are some great women's roles in television... so much more interesting than what I was reading in film scripts.
Sadly, my German is almost non-existent, although I did a little at school.
I think you go through a period as a teenager of being quite cool and unaffected by things.
I ask myself, 'What is the value of acting and the attention that actors get? And yet there are so many people in the world doing incredible things for mankind, and they don't get much attention.' I do question about that, but I don't think I would've been a great doctor. I think I would've been a good surgeon. That fascinated me.
Writers would hate me saying this, and I love words, but I have to say that cinema exists, on one level, for the power of the big image and what that image does.
I love the Russians for their verve, their melancholia, their vivacity, their unpredictability, and their humour.
I've made my peace with being in the spotlight, definitely.
Usually, I end up looking for something completely different to who I last played. But there is just a spark that's lit when I read a script or character I want to play.
I find, in film, we're always making things and having these intense friendships and then losing track of people. When I first start a job, I'm quite nervous, and it takes me a while to find my place, and then it feels like I'm just really loving it and feeling great, and it's all over.
Any time you have intimacy with someone, there is something between them.
I love buildings that aren't purpose-built.
In Australia, it's people from Asian countries who most often recognise me. There are often people just looking at me at the supermarket, like they're shocked to think I would go to the supermarket.
Premieres are pretty fun, but probably the most fun was when I went to see 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,' and I'd just flown in from Africa, and I hadn't even seen the movie yet. So, the first time I saw it was at the premiere. It was really fun.
There's such big pressure on people who are incredibly famous, on those who have people sitting outside their front door and taking photos every time they move.
I'd always had a big thing for the '60s.
QVB have a long history of supporting Australian talent.
I think film likes me better than the theatre does for some reason.
My parents split up when I was young, and they are still good friends. I think it's often projected that these things have to be so acrimonious. It's so often not the case.
I worry about my sides. I worry where everything goes. I worry that I'm going to be the leak. I give all my scripts back!
I'm so fair that I didn't go in the sun as a child. When all my friends were on the beach, I was going to ballet. The teachers there didn't like you going in the sun, so I never did.
That fascinated me. I used to watch all these operations on TV and thought it would be really cool to do that.
It's a little daunting coming on to work with actors that you respect so much.
Some scripts you read and say, 'I've just got to do this' and you find a way of making it work. Some things you turn down because of the impact on family.
I think 'Rake' was a very clever crossover, actually, because it does lend itself to the city of L.A.
I really enjoy playing intelligent characters. I'm more interested in that than just emotional kind of Mum characters.
I think that's the kind of women that people are interested in. They're interested in strong women characters who are stronger than the male characters sometimes, in some ways. That's what's interesting and attractive about women.
