I'm an Academy Award winner. I'm serious.
I havent lost my culture just my accent.
I think good filmmaking is when you really hold the mirror up truthfully and you don't angle it and you don't hide things with smoke and mirrors.
We don't live the lives of Eskimos. We don't need to kill animals for fashion.
I've never been driven by box office.
That's why I like my job so much because at the end of the day they're fruits of labor that you don't pick very easily. And I love that.
There's an instant access to luxury that I think women really appreciate.
I'm very attracted to characters who don't necessarily make it easy to be loved.
I really love having an awareness.
It's pretty impossible to be a South African and not have been personally affected by HIV or AIDS.
We value men more than women... straight love more than gay love... white skin more than black skin... and adults more than adolescents.
I think like many women I was judgmental toward women as they aged...
Marriage equality is about more than just marriage. It's about something greater. It's about acceptance.
The idea of stuff just hanging in my closet and not being used - there's a little bit of the African in me that gets bothered by that [somewhat].
Get on my Harley and act like a guy.
Pride comes from a place of real acknowledgment that somebody's actually living their life for themselves and I want to be that example for my son.
I always knew I would adopt. Always.
I've never been the kind of actress that just likes to show up and say my lines. I'm fascinated by what the crew does.
I hate actors who come and quote Nietzsche.
Oh my God I am so cool.
I'm open to anything dude. I'm open to anything. That's what I would ask the aliens. I'd be like "Do you watch 'Game of Thrones?'
I want to be part of the generation that stops AIDS.
Too many people have died so unnecessarily; AIDS is completely preventable yet it's killing more kids in South Africa then everything else and that's just not how it should be.
Other than vaccines and finding a cure most funding goes toward putting people on treatment. That's completely valid and I understand that but it's never how we're going to stop AIDS.
You know I don't think any mother aims to be a single mom. I didn't wish for that but it happened.
You choose the life you want for yourself and then you just shut up and go about it. That's how I've lived my life.
My job is to be a blank canvas & embody the characters that I'm playing.
Blade Runner was an incredibly influential movie in terms of the way that it envisioned what the future was going to look like.
I don't want to live in a world with blinders on.
I've always been very aware of balance and even before I had a child my life always takes priority to my work.
I grew up on Bette Davis movies and Marlene Dietrich Marilyn Monroe.
Life is what you make it... and nowhere close to making mine the best it can be.
Boys don't really like big nerdy glasses. Not so much.
If I knew that 3D was going to be such a big deal I would have gotten that boob job 10 years ago.
I'm a tough girl and I can go without a shower bot a week and be fine with that. But I will not sleep on dirty sheets.
I have been working a lot and I like it. And you know it's hard for me not to. I guess I've been working a lot because I get to play with brilliant people.
There are very very few brands that will be brave enough to really completely take a step back and not to try and control what is considered beautiful.
I'd love to get pajamas. Good nice and warm flannel ones.
I feel 100% sure that I have the career that I have today because of independent filmmaking.
You have to keep evolving.
It's so great as an actor to get the opportunity to do something that's incredibly truthful.
I just want to make good movies. Honestly the only difference for me with this stuff is that there is more people on the set.
Of course you want your son your children to be proud of you.
You're either a really good hooker or a really good mom. That kind of conflicted nature is very much a part of being a woman.
I can be a really good mother because I'm happy.
Hey I'm a girl and we like to play dress-up.
I can only hope to be 10 percent of the mom mine was to me. She encouraged me to be confident and enjoy life. That's what I want for my son.
I'm a true believer that everything happens the way it should.
I don't believe in charmed lives. I think that tragedy is part of the lesson you learn to lift yourself up to pick yourself up and to move on.
There's always been a celebration of what is that moment whoever I am at that moment in my life. [It] is a very real way of looking at beauty.
I'm not a fan of justifying bad behavior or justifying why people are the way they are. I think that's a cop out. I don't have a lot of empathy for that.
I didn't grow up with a mother telling me what was under my clothes was bad or evil.
Beauty is more than skin deep.
When a person lives a very happy life they become beautiful.
[If you want to] ask the question what is beautiful? It's the life that you lead. It's the life that all women lead.
I think that women find their strength and power in their sexuality in their sensuality within [through] getting older and being secure within that.
I love being a woman and I love being feminine.
You always have this fear in a movie of just being somebody's woman.
So far I'm not surprised by anything about being a mom. It's all pretty great - but that's what I expected.
I've always said that I worry about being with a man who doesn't flirt.
I am human and yeah I have very bad days.
I think today women are very scared to celebrate themselves because then they just get labeled.
I treat my relationships like marriages. The ceremony isn't that important to me.
In life we want to challenge ourselves.
I think in life we want to challenge ourselves.
You can live vicariously through the characters you play.
I've tried most of my career to transform myself towards characters.
I mean I tried to transform myself through characters throughout my career.
I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character I don't look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don't think of them as like Charlize Theron films.
I like being a cog in a wheel. I like being a small aspect of a much bigger thing and I think my interest in that takes the pressure of myself.
If they ever do my life story whoever plays me needs lots of hair color and high heels.
I think a sense of humor is a very personal thing and I don't know if I am talented enough to do romantic comedies.
I don't think you can create anything interesting from a comfort zone. You have to work from a place of fear and failure.
My whole concept in life is if you're not using it you should give it to somebody else so they can use it.
I do not think that condemning people who murder and killing them necessarily sends out the right message.
I know what I'm capable of wearing in one lifetime and what I really need.
You can never get to a place of comfort in this business. As soon as you hit that little cushy spot somebody's gonna kick you out. So I have a constant need to do it better.
I am a relationship girl. That's kind of just how I'm made... When you're in my life it's actually very contained.
I think of myself as a highly sexual creature
I feel like I know South Africans. I feel like I know our culture.
We all understand situations where it's swim or drown. Sometimes we surprise ourselves when we start swimming and see how well we can do it.
I don't like rehearsal.
I think people say women come into their prime in their 40s. And then for some reason our society just wants to go... it's like a dead flower.
I make a real effort to try and live in the real world and not just the dream world.
I tend to if I decide to do a job want to be able to trust my director.
Our mechanics are engineered so that we can survive quite a lot but I think our need to be loved is so great that itâ??s the thing that damages us the most.
There's nothing I despise more than people trying to be something that they're not.
It's in the eyes mostly. Don't listen just to the other actor's lines. Look at - and listen to - their eyes. That's where the emotion comes through.
I'm happy for people who want to get married but it's not my thing. I'm extremely happy in my relationship and I would love to have kids.
People are so involved with immediate care but at the same time there needs to be investment in educating people as adolescents when they're still HIV negative.
My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.
I like hard work. I like putting the effort towards it and then being able to look at it and go "All right I did that.
I try to hang on to as much mystery as possible. How can we go through our lives not wanting to have any element of surprise?â??
I was going to go to Macchu Picchu and then I just ended up working the whole year.
I've always known I wanted a family.
My thoughts and love go out to the Mandela family. Rest in peace Madiba. You will be missed but your impact on this world will live forever.
When I'm working I don't have room to think about myself and my own issues. It's really freeing. There is no room for me which is really nice.
I'm always open to a relationship but I'm not putting those feelers out there now.
I do this because I'm an observer of people. That's why I want to be an actor. I'm fascinated by human beings and the circumstances they find themselves in.
In the story I think as an actor you're just trying to fit into the world.
When I find something that I really like and I can get it off then I put my time and energy into that because it is a lot of work.
Men are like fine wines - the older they get the better they get.
I think I have a real interest in filmmaking and it's nice when I can go and do that sometimes. Then it's also great to not do it and not have the responsibility .
I never take that for granted but I'm always very aware that I'm one person and I can't wear everything.
You have to be able to feel like you can play way outside of the box. If you're with a great filmmaker and someone you can trust that's encouraged and Seth was that kind of filmmaker and co-star.
Women are not allowed to be [complicated] in our society. We're comfortable seeing women as great mothers and then we're comfortable seeing them as hookers but there's no in-between.
I want to be in a good movie and so the narrative is way more important.
Tommy [ Lee Jones] doesn't suffer fools easily. I think everybody knows that but I have great respect for someone that's very direct and very honest. I don't have thin skin so I'm okay with that.
The thing I noticed is that a lot of times great material can get ruined if its not in the right hands.
I have very talented people dress me and put my makeup on stuff like that. But I do love that look and I think it's maybe because I grew up on that old glamour.
I love that old glamour look. I think it's because I grew up on it.
I'm 50-50 on glamour stuff. I'd rather put on a pair of jeans and get on my Harley and act like a guy.
You are only as great as the opportunities that are given to you.
I'm happy for people who want to get married. It's not my thing.
Yet there's a hunger in me still. I'm like only beginning. I feel like I still have so much to learn.
One thing can make many other things happen.
I learned everything about love watching 'Splash.' That's why I'm still single so thanks Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah for that.
I hate table reads. I hate anything where you have to say the words out loud.
I think since I did Monster I really started understanding how hard it is for first time directors. I think there's a lot of great stories out there but it's high risk.
I don't want to live in a world where I just kind of play on my naïveté - well if I don't know it then it doesn't exist.
I think it's interesting that women by nature are way more conflicted than men.
Something I learned very early on in my career is that there are a lot of things that you do not have any power over.
I don't want to be put on a pedestal. I don't want to be anything other than what we are. I want to just be a woman.
I have OCD which is not fun. I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me.
My job as an actor and the part of my job that I love is the transforming-and-becoming aspect of it and so it doesn't become about me anymore.
I think we're at a time where people just want to join together and cause change. People don't want to live like this any more.
Like I think I pussy out. So I'm not that kind of person.
We value some lives more than others.
I've never been a fan of labels. I think its very easy to kind of look at somebody and just kind of throw a label on them 'They're crazy.'
I think more than anything people just want to be understood.
I am going home and I think in a week or so hopefully I'll be done with all the press stuff and then I can kind of into my cave and start preparing for "Mad Max.
When they watch a movie and they know that you're in a relationship you just kind of watch that constantly.
Modeling was never a passion of mine.
I don't really watch a lot of television and I would watch mindless mindless television.
There's only so much you can do but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do.
I don't try to kind of go for the overly sympathetic. I don't really like sympathy; I don't like it for myself. Sometimes sympathy you feel like you're kind of trying to victimize someone.
Looks alone wonâ??t get you that far. It may get you in the door but thereâ??s always somebody younger somebody prettier. You have to rely on something else.
What I know in my heart is that women and girls on the ground are powerful and that they are leaders.
I think writing a book with film in mind is a way to write a really bad books. You can usually tell those books that are packaged to become films.
I'd be unbelievably wrong to say there isn't such a thing as the right place right time-luck.
I think substitution is a huge part of acting but I don't personalise my work that much.
You have to discipline yourself and not carry the character with you. You need to switch it off and take time to re-energize.
The tone is so important to a film and that tone can really make something fall or succeed.
As you get older you get wrinkles and your boobs sag. But you get wisdom too. So it's not all bad!