Mercedes Ruehl

I learned a lot more about transgender people. It's not a choice, but a physiological condition that has to do with the size of the hypothalamus part of the brain.

I find there's almost no place to put an award that one's quite comfortable with.

I'll be with The Goat until the fall. Then I've been given three plays to look at and there have been a couple of films have come over the desk. I will probably not do either one of them.

Writing of that caliber spoils you for any other kind of writing for awhile. But that's probably good.

But in my own particular case, there was something that happened when I became a mother. Whenever in the news I saw an example of a child being abused or mistreated, my response went from being appalled to being physically revolted.

Also, I had read a book called She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, written by a professor who had gone through transgender surgery, but it took this person well into his thirties to come to terms with the absolute necessity of having to do it.

You know, I once leased a Mercedes because I got a good deal on it because of my first name.

In this business, you never say no to anything.

Society historically has a difficult time with the concept of something new and foreign that shakes up our comfortable views, especially if it involves the very volatile question of sexual identity.

We have the tendency to condemn what we don't understand.

Nature chooses who will be transgender; individuals don't choose this.