Quotes

I am most proud of my integrity and least proud of my cynicism.

I've always made films that are sort of avant-garde-y or whatever you call it.

I knew people would not understand it. It's a shame people write so many things when they haven't seen it. When you see the film, it makes more sense. It's an art film. It should be playing in museums. It's like an Andy Warhol movie. [on the oral sex scene in The Brown Bunny (2003)]

You hear about these actresses who avoid going to fashion shows lest they not be taken seriously. I don't like going because it's such a circus. It's always anticlimactic. But I'm not ashamed to admit it: Fashion is superficial, but I love it.

I had a great family life - I would never want it to look as if it reflected on them. I think I was very bored, and I did just love taking hallucinogens. But I often feel it's because I experimented when I was younger that I have no interest as an adult. I know a lot of adults who didn't, and it's much more dangerous when you start experimenting as an adult. [on drug experimentation as a teenager]

I think it's sexy to be a little bit mysterious.

I don't want to be a movie star or be famous; I just want to do a few good movies and maybe move some people.

[on being cast in Kids (1995)] Harmony [Korine] just thought I was this sweet, cute girl and he liked my blonde hair.

I'm ambitious, but I'm not ambitious enough to move to Los Angeles.

I had an agent once who said that in an audition you have to make the women want to be you and the men want to fuck you. I said, I'm sorry, I can't just go into a room and, like, try to achieve that. That's not my motivation in life.

I've never felt like I had very much to say. Maybe that'll come later in life.

I hate going to fashion shows. I find them boring.

As of late [2011], I am more of a homebody. I like having people over. You can smoke in the apartment. I'm just not into going out so much. The crowd is getting younger and younger.

[on her ambitions to act] I mean I'd gone to like summer theatre camp every year growing up and I had always aspired to be an actress. I was actually in some commercials when I was a kid. And then my mother pulled because she thought the world was a little too twisted and she wanted me to be a kid more. And so they hired a professional actress, Mia Kirshner and then two days before shooting they fired her and hired me, so that's someone else's misfortune.

[on Jennifer Lopez] I love her in the ghetto sense.

I was having a very difficult time in school. I was miserable. I was dissatisfied with the town we lived in.

It's not what you spend but how you wear it that counts. The key is often to dress up inexpensive basics with accessories. Something like a beautiful designer bag or belt can make everything else look richer and more luxurious.

When I was younger, I was really anti-Hollywood. Now I'm more accepting of it because I'm less of a snob.

In Hollywood, you can't say anything bad about anybody or everyone is going to attack you. It's like you always have to put on a happy face, be the phony baloney, and I'm so not that. I never was that; I'll never be that. That is part of the business that I don't like.

My first job was in sixth grade, sweeping the clay tennis courts at the yacht club near my house, which I was not a member of. Always had to pay my own rent. But I don't really have any concept of how money works. I don't know how much things cost. Like a BMW. Or a quart of milk. It's embarrassing.

I think it's just a lot more pressure to make the scenes work when you're doing a film, because when you're doing a series you feel like, I have so many scenes, so many episodes, so if I don't get it exactly right this time, I have another scene later. You feel less pressure.

I was very troubled, yes. Me and my brother both - we were troubled and troublemakers.

I used to be more suspicious, paranoid. I worried that I wasn't smart enough or pretty enough or talented enough. Everywhere I went, I'd wonder, what are people thinking about me? What are they saying? I couldn't go to a Friday night movie for fear people would heckle me! But after 30, you just stop worrying so much. You start caring about things that are more important.

It seemed like everyone had BMWs and Jeeps and nice cars and a lot of money, and I just thought it was really obnoxious. Maybe I wasn't fair. But I didn't want to get involved with all that. It was way more material. Everyone was like way overachievers [or] into athletics and wanted to go to Ivy League schools. I didn't do any extracurricular activities in high school. I guess I skated a bit. My brother had been a skater. We had two ramps in our backyard. I'd sit by the ramps and watch his friends skate. That's when my infatuation with skaters began. I wasn't very good at ramps, so I used to skate freestyle.

[on the Me Too movement] I've had experiences that are kind of common, verbal experiences, or innuendos. But I didn't feel they offended me to such a degree that I wanted to name the names. I think they're commonly known as assholes anyway.

For someone to say 'What are you doing after?' during a casting session is not so unheard of. Yeah, it shouldn't be done and lots of girls might feel vulnerable and not know what to do in that situation. For me it was like: really?

I come off cold or unapproachable, when in fact I'm just insecure.

[on the Oscars] I'm too honest of a person. I'm only going to vote if I've seen everything in a category. I don't want to just vote for my friends or something.

[on Oppenheimer (2023)] I kind of enjoyed it, but I also felt like it was just white guys doing bad stuff. I guess we're gonna continue to mine that. As I was watching it, I kept wondering, 'Am I stimulated by this or am I bored by this?' I felt somewhere in the middle.