Jennifer Connelly

I look very serious. I look stern even when I'm not stern. If I'm not feeling cross, I look a little bit cross. I can't help it. It's just my face.

I had a good time working with Russell Crowe, Ron Howard and Ed Harris. It was a great cast and Russell worked really hard, doing tons of research and questioning everything.

I didn't expect to win the Oscar. You grow up watching the Oscars on TV and you think it happens to fancy people. It was really surreal.

When it's good it's great, it's really great.

Once I'm comfortable with someone, I'm not reserved. I'm a compulsive confessor.

I'll probably at some point get involved in Instagram and things like that because I feel it's reality, and it's the way people communicate.

I still get recognized for 'Labyrinth' by little girls in the weirdest places. I can't believe they still recognize me from that movie. It's on TV all the time, and I guess I pretty much look the same.

I met David Bowie when I was 14, and he became a hero to me - because he was an artist, and because he was a genius who had the time to be kind. I'd never met such an extraordinary artist before, and I haven't since - the world will be a greyer place without him.

I'll do a strong eye or a strong lip - but both together? Not so much.

I do a little bit of minimal brow wrangling myself. I get the strays out of the way.

We equate beauty for women with youth, and that's sad. It's a shame it's so hard for so many of us to appreciate the beauty of an older woman and to accept it in ourselves.

I almost moved into a place over a funeral parlor. My father said, 'That's just too macabre,' but I thought I'd be embracing my mortality. I told him it would keep me grounded - like when people get skull tattoos.

I don't know if I was a star. I was certainly working a lot and that was strange because there were good things about it and things that were difficult.

I was kind of a tomboy.

I'm really blessed. I love my job. Love going to work. I just love it. I love getting it, I love preparing for it. I love the whole process. I love the whole ritual. I'm really very lucky. Lucky girl.

I would not want to be on a cruise ship. Some ferry crossings I'm not too thrilled about.

Every job I do, I feel like it is an amazing opportunity. I try to throw myself into every role with everything I have.

I pick different projects for different reasons. Usually, it's a combination of things. I admire the director, and I am interested in working with the director. Or, it's the cast. I can be moved by the story. The ideal situation is you love the director and you love the cast.

At the end of the day, what difference does it make if you made 10 films or 18 films? You made 10 films, but you had a great relationship with your kids, or at least you did your best not to screw them up irrevocably, or you made 18, and they don't return your phone calls.

Becoming a mother has made all the difference in terms of learning to take more responsibility for myself and my life. Parenthood changed the way I do everything.

The biggest thing for me is wanting my kids to grow up safely and have happy lives. To me, that's enough.

I don't want to put happiness off to the future, because you never know what life will bring.

As I get older, I have a clearer sense of what's important to me.

Dark Water was one of my favourite films to shoot because of Walter. I had seen the previous films he had directed, Central Station and Motorcycle Diaries, and I thought they were great. I really trusted him.

I wasn't brought up with any religion at all. At school and in my early 20s, I read every religious text I could get my hands on - Buddhist scriptures, Hindu texts, the Qur'an, and the Bible. I wanted to feel like something made sense to me, that there was something sacred I could feel aligned with.