Laura Dern

I was on the cover of a lot of magazines, and there were compliments about beauty and fashion and what I was wearing. Man, if you get locked into that, you can lose your freedom as an actress.

Meditation is a practice that is considered mainstream: The NFL uses it, the NBA uses it, heart patients use it. It's very easy to consider yourself a meditator and not be too alternative-minded.

I always wanted to do a 'Ms. Smith Goes to Washington.'

I was raised in the '70s, and I've worked with people I love, and I've been on sets with my parents, with people who run a set and require of actors a sense of liberty and freedom and exploration and failure into brave achievement.

For me, the greatest good fortune I have being raised by actors is I came in knowing that a career is the ebb and flow.

Any journey of a creative person has, you know, really unusual challenges and years where you don't work and years where you work.

In American culture we are supposed to take a pill when we're depressed or in grief as opposed to actually feeling.

I've worked with David Lynch since I was 17, and working with him is home and family; being around Alexander Payne is home and family, Jonathan Demme. There are directors... Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson... They are directors where I create homes.

Something that I've cared about deeply my whole career is getting to work with filmmakers and inventors of stories that are hysterical because they are just so painfully true.

I got picked for very unique and independent filmmaking experiences with auteurs. And I'm so lucky.

I know that I've seen a mannerism, or a way I've cried, or something, where I see a flash of my parents.

I don't think you have to be in these serious, heavy, independent little movies to be an actor. Some of the most interesting acting I've seen is on cable television.

If you're looking to be loved for a part, it's great and enticing to be adorable in a romantic comedy. But then, as an actor, you get stuck.

Anybody you make a movie with when you're 12 and they're 14, you're going to know them your whole life.

Ben Stiller, who I love and who is a friend and is such an incredible actor - he's hilarious, obviously, but I thought his performance in 'Greenberg' was extraordinary.

Unfortunately, I was making comedies in my 20s, but other people didn't realize they were comedies.

I love Clint Eastwood, and I wish to work with him again. He's completely irreverent about everything, including his own beautiful work.

Sadly, half of marriages end in divorce. Half of my girl friends and male friends have been through one, and their kids are doing great. There's no shame around it - unless you want to project that on to yourself - but certainly there's no longer cultural shame. Everyone is walking through it.

I was raised on movie sets, and I decided for myself at a very young age that it was what I wanted to do.

My dad was always interested in characters he didn't understand - he was such a great bad guy in movies. And that is really the thing that calls me to the material often: something I struggle to understand in human behaviour.

Love means a lot to me, and I love loving, and I love boys.

I will be working with David Lynch when I'm 80.

To stay true to your art is such a complicated journey, and Dad clearly has done it.

There are artists or filmmakers or cinematographers who have had long careers who, maybe to reinvent themselves or just to stay in a secure place, layer it on or ham it up, if I can use that expression, or make grand choices that don't feel as authentic as what they did to make us fall in love with them in the first place.

When you become a parent, you really care that you get that right, and you care about nothing else.

I have a very wonderfully, bizarrely amazing relationship with my mother in that we've been through a myriad of emotions because we've acted together and played all these different kinds of mother-daughters.

I'm interested in human nature. That's why I chose to become an actor.

I think it's about not just the crisis you're in, but how do you get to the other side? How do we heal? How do we survive this experience while remaining hopeful instead of filled with despair? That's what interests me.

I was raised Catholic, and my grandmother taught me to stay. As a teenager, I thought if you went on a date, you should stay for a couple of years. I didn't realize that if he wasn't your cup of tea, you got to leave.

I'm moved by people who see the world differently than others. People who see the world with a longing for its poetry often can be broken people.

I like to play people who are deeply flawed, and I want to find the good nature in them. I even try to be kind to myself when I've made big mistakes.

It's lovely to be considered pretty and lovely to do photo shoots, and I just love fashion. But I'm proud that I did the characters I wanted to do.

I always wondered what it would be like to have a normal childhood.

Jealousy is a scary thing.

I grew up with a tribe of amazing women, but certainly my mother and my godmother really modeled women as actors.

Being an actress my whole life, it feels so good to have a clean face when I'm off, so I'm not a big makeup wearer.

I love when actors can let go of where and how they have to do it, and just that we do it. That we are flawed and human, and don't worry about how we look or who we are, or that it seems too old of a character if we're still young.

When you're first reading the script and thinking about playing the part, it's slightly daunting. It's easy to question, 'Is an audience going to like me? And is that my job?'

I worked with HBO on 'Recount,' and we had a wonderful experience together. I'm such a fan of HBO and how much flexibility they give in character as well as schedule.

When you're playing someone who has a strong ego about themselves, you can't play them when you have the opposite opinion of the one they have of themselves.

I think my mom exposed me to the concept of using your voice for anything you care about.

At 12, turned 13, made a movie with Sex Pistols and The Clash. Learned about a lot of things I never knew and hope will never know again. Don't know how my parents let me do that.

Going to the Academy Awards is something I remember since I was six, when I went with my mom for the first time, 14 with my dad, you know, and there I am, at 22, 23, whatever I was, sitting next to my mom. You know, and then again, there with my dad. Like, there's a beauty to it, and I care deeply about film history.

It's interesting to play a real-life person who has already been a character on 'Saturday Night Live.'

People now tell me it's a good thing I stayed away from teen films. Well, it wasn't my choice. I wasn't hired.

If I had different parents who were in it for the money, I might have a different perspective. But they really are artists; they intelligently approach each character and prepare in every sense of the word. I grew up in a world that had great discipline.

Sometimes my family got me in the door. Somebody would say, 'Bruce Dern's daughter - sure I'd like to meet her.' It was a point of interest. But after five minutes of talking about my father, I still had to read for the part.

All kids are selfish. I wanted to do homework and do my thing and call my agent. My mother's needs weren't in my mind at that moment.

I care a lot about fragrance not only in my life, but sometimes it feels right while working on a character.

I'm a natural blonde. I was a towhead as a kid, and then it got ashier when I was 18.