- [on shooting Superbad (2007)] It's incredible, it's been really fun and really funny and I can't stop breaking character which is getting me in trouble sometimes but it's alright, ya know . . . I just keep laughing.
- I've got a great family and great people around me that would be able to kick me in the shins if I ever for one minute got lost up in the clouds. I've been really lucky in that sense.
- Haven't had to fight off any Seth characters. And I'm not fighting him off. It's a situation where I really do like him. I just don't want our first kiss to happen in that situation. But, no, I've never really had that experience. Of someone coming on to me being out of their mind drunk. I'm the lucky one, maybe.
- [on it being difficult for women to get into comedy] There really aren't many parts. It's an unfortunate thing and something I hope will change, but never has, and who knows if it will? I think Saturday Night Live (1975), starting in the 1970s, really gave women an outlet to be funny. A lot of those women went on to have film careers, from Kristen Wiig now to Tina Fey and Gilda Radner . . . Nowadays it seems like the real goldmine is in creating your own characters and teaming with a good writer, but it's not easy. It's a scary thing for a woman to put yourself out there and look like an idiot. Look at Lucille Ball. She said, "I'm not funny. What I am is brave". The comediennes I admire are the bravest people who aren't afraid to look ridiculous. Maybe that's a harder notion for women--the fear of not looking their best.
- I realize I have a lot of amazing opportunities, but I don't know how you can play a human being going through real human experiences without being able to walk down the street. If you can't live a real life, how do you play a real person? It always confuses me when actors work back-to-back-to-back with no break. If you live your life on a film set, how the hell can you relate to real people? You don't know what it's like to not have people fussing over you all day, and that's not life--that's silly movies. I will always want to take breaks and I wouldn't be OK with losing that.
- [on her hair for her role in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)] I have blonde hair now since Gwen [Stacy] has blonde hair. My hair is naturally blonde, so it's kind of nice. I look in the mirror and say, "Oh my God, it's me again, it's been so long!"
- The truth is I am naturally blonde anyway. Everyone thinks I'm a redhead but that's just dyed. I'm actually enjoying being a blonde again. It's been a while.
- Blondes do have more fun. But sometimes I look in the mirror and still feel like I'm wearing a wig.
- Y'know when you think, "I can't do something because this or this or this". You can actually do anything you want, like I could [go] ballistic right now and tear this whole room apart, I could but i'm not going to because logic is stopping me, but you can do whatever you want. You really can veer off any path at any time. Never give up!
- I was a stepsister in a local production of "Cinderella". I had crazy red hair in a cone shape and lots of blue eye shadow. I had braces at the time, so whenever I smiled it was all red lipstick on my teeth, which was really attractive. After that I did a play called "Noises Off", and when that was over I thought, "I really want to be in movies". So I asked my parents and eventually they said yes.
- [on beauty] Confidence is the only key. I know a lot of people who aren't traditionally "beautiful"--not symmetrical or perfect-bodied or perfect-skinned. But none of that matters because all that shines through is their confidence, humor and comfort with themselves. I can't think of any better representation of beauty than someone who is unafraid to be herself.
- [on Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)] First of all, do you know how rare it is that you read an original script--a story that isn't a sequel, prequel, threequel? But this movie covers all of these different kind of relationships, and it looks at them in original ways. How unusual is it that you see a story in which a woman cheats on her husband but you also root for them to get back together?
- [on performing flying-stunt sequences in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)]I will say this about wirework. It's like the difference between roller coaster and bungee jump. I'm fine in a roller coaster. but put me in a bungee thing where they shoot you up and you freefall? I don't like that. It's fine if there's a track and some kind of harness, but I get really freaked-out if it's in any way a freefall.
- We went to Coronado every summer, so I always think of driving over that bridge from San Diego, and then walking down that little strip on the main street, going cosmic bowling at midnight, eating at this 24-hour diner at 3 a.m.--that's summer to me. We'd just hang out on the beach and walk around and go to Hotel Del Coronado, and learn about the ghost of the Hotel Del.
- There's this Ryan Gosling quote that I steal all the time--I watched an interview with him in Cannes--and he said picking roles is like listening to songs on the radio: There can be a lot of really great songs in a row, but then one comes on that just makes you want to dance.
- My instincts seem to come from a different place--they feel headier to me, and I get the wrong scent and go off on these whims.
- I learned to play the bass for The Rocker (2008). They sent over a bass coach the night I got the role, so I had to get into it right away and get calluses as quickly as possible. So I can play all the songs in the movie, but that's pretty much where the line ends. I bought a Fender Mustang bass, a really nice off-white, ivory bass, when I got home. I have not touched it since. And I need to. It's in my house, it's sitting there waiting. You know what? After this conversation, I'm going to go play some bass. That's what's going to happen.
- [on providing a voice for Eep in The Croods (2013)] I'm a cave girl, yeah! So I got to go nuts, which was great. I like not to reel it in and when you're a cartoon you can act as crazy as you want.
- I'm a big fan of Lauren Bacall. Maybe because everyone was smoking more heavily then, but that raspy, throaty quality seems to be much more prevalent in those '40s movies. Mine was from colic when I was a baby.
- It's nice to know that even when you're shooting a movie like The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) that you approach the character the same way, and you're trying to tell the truth, all the time, about who that person is and what they're feeling. So it's comforting that under any circumstance no matter what the budget that that remains the same. This feels different. The press feels different. This is where it really strikes you that you're in Spider-Man.
- I get a lot of questions about hair color. People are very into talking about hair.
- I went through a list of names and picked Riley. But then I had a guest part on Malcolm in the Middle (2000), and everyone kept on yelling, "Riley!" and I didn't know who they were talking to.
- I do find that I am drawn to people in my life, romantically or not, that have something to teach me . . . There is some sense of being changed.
- I won't make a bucket list because I'm so afraid that I'll die and then people will find my bucket list and be, like, "Oh, she didn't get to do that."
- When I was 14 years old, I made this PowerPoint presentation, and I invited my parents into my room and gave them popcorn. It was called "Project Hollywood 2004" and it worked. I moved to L.A. in January of 2004.
- My parents always made me feel as though I could do anything--not in a cheerleading, "You're the greatest!" kind of way; it was more, "You're going to have to work hard, but we'll support you however we can."
- You're only human. You live once and life is wonderful, so eat the red velvet cupcake.
- [on Marion Cotillard] She's prodigious in La Vie En Rose (2007). I can't count the times that I reenacted the scenes from the film in my room.
- [Speaking out to the controversy of her portraying "Allison Ng" from the film, Aloha (2015)] I've become the butt of many jokes. I've learned on a macro level about the insane history of whitewashing in Hollywood and how prevalent the problem truly is. It's ignited a conversation that's very important. The character was not supposed to look like her background, which was a quarter Hawaiian and a quarter Chinese.
- In my career so far, I've needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them. And that's something they do for me because they feel it's what's right and fair. That's something that's also not discussed, necessarily that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say, That's what's fair
- Acting was something that helped me overcome a lot of my anxiety and doubts. Your teenage years can often be difficult, but I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life. So that gave me plenty of drive and ambition.
- [on laughing during her lesbian sex scene in The Favourite] When I fingered the queen [Olivia Coleman], we had to put a sponge between her legs because it had to have movement. We couldn't stop laughing, because I'm fingering a sponge and she's making sounds. It's a closeup of my face, but her face is off-camera. We just kept cracking up because the circumstance, this sponge was so ridiculous. So that one was tough.
- [on life] Nobody knows what they're doing! We're all just a bunch of people trying to figure out how to get through the day.
- [on offering to do her first nude scene in The Favourite] I had the sheet up around me, and as we were shooting it and we did a few takes, I said, 'Can I please just be [naked]?' I think it's going to give Sarah something to look at when she sees that I'm not just under the sheet covered up. Olivia [Colman] was like, 'No, don't do it!' [and director] Yorgos [Lanthimos] was like, 'Are you sure that's what you want to do?' And I was like, 'Absolutely.'
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