Quotes

[on her arrest for protesting the demolition of Los Angeles' South Central garden] I'm not thrilled about it, but I felt it was important to sustain my commitment.

I feel like I'm about 7. I always get shocked when I look in the mirror and see a grown-up.

I was a daydreamer when I was a child and I still am. I like fantasy a lot. It would be great if I could always play mythological characters.

[on addressing the skepticism of climate-change deniers] I make a concerted effort to do conservative media. People go, "Oh no, don't do that. They'll eat you alive." But I don't care; that's what I need to do. I need to reach those people and at least give them the opportunity to listen to the information. I really believe if people have information, they will make wise decisions.

One of my happiest memories is of filming At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991), in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. I'd lived in a cave in Greece for three months as a teenager, filming Summer Lovers (1982), so knew I had the wild girl in me. In Brazil, we were shooting a long speedboat ride up the river, flying in and out to our jungle location every day from a Holiday Inn in the smoggy chaos of Belem city, crew piled into a rickety 1940s pontoon plane. One evening, I'd had enough, so I strung up my hammock and refused to budge. An assistant director stayed with me - Kátia Lund, who went on to co-direct City of God (2002) - and we had the greatest time. As soon as the plane was out of sight, we'd strip off and plunge straight into the river. We fashioned our own waterskis out of driftwood and we'd take one of the little location boats and explore - docking at little Amazon villages, eating with the locals. Delicious things such as tacaca, a clear broth made with jambu, a native vegetable, and tucupi, a yellow sauce from the wild manioc root. I loved the mornings on the Amazon, waking to warm sunshine on my skin and breakfast plucked from nearby trees: bananas, mango, guava and açaí berries. Night was the real challenge, as we well knew how many scorpions and tarantulas shared our home. We slept cocooned in our hammocks, beneath grass-roofed shacks with no doors and windows.