I'm not that conservative. I do feel - I guess I'm more of a Democrat at heart, although I've never affiliated myself with a particular party.
When Aretha Franklin came on the radio when I was in college, we would stop the car, throw open the doors, jump out, and dance.
And people are always saying: 'Well, you go to Hollywood and you get yourself a film career or a TV series, and then you can do anything you want. Because then you've got the clout.' That had always sounded like a lot of hooey to me, but now I think it's true, unfortunately.
When I first went to interview for 'Misery,' they were saying things like, 'You're not Michelle Pfeiffer, you know.' And I just don't get the relevance of that remark. I'm not Elizabeth Taylor, either. I'm not Sean Connery.
I got my SAG card quite unexpectedly. I was here in Los Angeles doing a play called 'Vanities' - it was 1976, I believe - and I got invited by Dustin Hoffman, whom I'd met in New York, to come audition for a movie he was directing.
One of my favorite films is 'Psycho,' which I saw when I was 12.
Cancer and its aftermath changed my outlook in a profound way. I've become less of a hermit, and I travel more.
I went from years of honing my craft to sudden recognition. It was quite a life changer.
I was never an ingenue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.
My inner strength comes from my friends. I have a very close group of friends and family, and we all help each other through our dark times.
My mother used to ask, 'Why do you always write such sad songs?' I don't know if I was different from a lot of adolescents in that respect.
I'm always so nervous when I have to do interviews or be on 'The Tonight Show' or the 'Oprah' show, where I have to be myself. I don't know why that's such a big deal - being yourself. But for some reason, I feel good in a dark room talking to actors about acting, doing acting. I like sitting backstage watching people work.
I look for a role that hopefully I feel empathy with and that I can understand and love, but also that has that challenge for me to play - a different kind of role, a different type of character, a different time period.
