Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.

I grew up in a Ukrainian Catholic-turned-Christian household, and that is my family’s faith.

Do I pray? Yes. Prayer is very important to me.

I’m just someone who marvels at God.

I love Saturday nights with my best friend and a big bowl of pasta, wanting a good scare, something that will say, ‘Listen, your life is not as bad as this. Your life can be...

My father instilled in me – of utmost importance and innate in me is the yearning to determine for myself – to define God, to define holiness for myself.

The limelight is a tricky place, because you can’t believe what’s going on around you. You stop observing. You stop perceiving. You stop extending yourself, and you become isolated.

My only real advice to Oscar nominees is, ‘If you haven’t actually seen a competitor’s film, don’t fib and say you have and blow smoke up their wahooziewhatsits.’ Always best to be frank and tell...

I think that films about faith made for faith-based communities have a certain tactic.

I just can’t feel lukewarm about a character. I either despise her, admire her, or don’t understand her and want to understand her.

I’ve never graced the cover of a fashion magazine.

I am drawn to intimate, often uncomfortable portraits of a woman persevering and awakening.

You earn very little money on independent films and I’m the provider for my home, so I do have to think of taking one for the accountant time and again and that means studio pictures.

There are some times when I think acting can be a noble profession. And when those rare roles come along, like ‘Down to the Bone,’ you have the opportunity to be of service.

Ruminants are a perfectly normal thing to possess when you live in upstate New York. It’s just moving scenery. It’s kind of like the equivalent of Great Danes. It’s the way you keep your grass...

We take a lot for granted as second wave feminists, what our mothers and aunts did for us.

I just hate one-dimensional portrayals of religion; it’s too cheap and easy to do, and ignores the nuances that go into having a belief system.

I’ve played a lot of mothers in my movies.

I’m from the school of, ‘if you want more, you have to require more from yourself.’

I’m saying that the depth of exploration of the male psyche and the female psyche is uneven. I see further, deeper renderings of what it means to be a man.

There really are three types of ‘religious’ movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.

We’re all sick of holy wars and bloodshed because religion is supposed to give us life and a better life and is supposed to bring out our best self. When it results in mass destruction...

Whether you’re making a million dollar film or a $100 million film there is never enough money, there’s never enough time.

Honestly, I think a good film is spiritual, regardless of whether its subject is faith.

I, for one, am tired of seeing movies about men damaging each other.

In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made.

Faith is important to me.

Music is what our feelings sound like.

You don’t have to be gay to be attracted to your friend.

I can’t get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.

You don’t necessarily have to be religious to pray.

Editing is not a part of the filmmaking process I’ve ever been privy to as an actress.

I chase after inspiring stories.

I have tender, romantic associations with upstate New York.

You ought to have a perspective when you’re making a film.

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.

I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Your soul either feels lifted by something that you read, or it feels squashed by it.

I think maybe I was a shepherdess in a past life.

I come from a massive family, and the youngest is twentysomething years younger than I am, so I grew up with children.

Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

I don’t necessarily need Hollywood.

I’ve always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it’s not the lines you say that are important – it’s what exists between the lines. What I’m compelled by most is that transparency...

I love to be surprised.

Editing yourself is like an irksome coin toss. You’ve got to strip yourself of super ego and operate from the id. Maybe I’ve got my Freud mixed up. It’s just hard to trade a beauty...

I’m part wood nymph. I require mountains and warm, dense patches of moss to thrive.

It’s true: I don’t remember what life was like before parenthood.

I think God gave us senses of humor, and we should use them.

I have the best husband a wife could possibly have. He’s the best father my children could have.

In these times, in this harsh, rude, warring world that we live in, where most of the bloodshed is ‘My god is greater than your god,’ and we’re fighting in the name of our god,...