I like to tell myself people look at me for all sorts of reasons. Maybe they’re staring because they’re shocked or maybe they recognise me from TV, or maybe they just like my shoes – especially women, because we all look at each other’s clothes and hair.
The first book I really loved was ‘Little Women’ – I’d have given anything for Beth to have been allowed to live; I remember crying very much over her death, trying to make the words change just by staring at them. I loved ‘Anne of Green Gables,’ too; ‘What Katy Did;’ and ‘Peter Pan.’
If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.
If I stop to think about fans, or best-selling, or not best-selling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It’s like staring at the mirror all day.
I think a lot of people mistake my confidence on stage for cockiness in real life, and that’s actually farthest from the truth. When I’m on stage, I’m that confident and that cocky because I have a microphone in my hand, and there’s a few thousand people staring at me. And I know they’re there to laugh.
I thought back to my middle-school experience of having slumber parties and watching Romeo + Juliet and staring at Leo and thinking about my first kiss and what I wanted it to be like. And when you have your first real love, it’s an epiphany, you know? It’s like a whole new world.
There have been times I’ve finished a big job and thought, ‘Great, a couple of weeks off.’ But then a couple of weeks turns to three weeks and then after a month you’re staring at the phone willing it to ring.
I’m useless at staring at a piece of white paper. But if you put a piece of white paper with a black line on it in front of me, I’ll say no that black line should be red and it should go this way or that way.
All my life, I’ve felt people are looking at me. So, when I became known, it was like, ‘I’m not imagining this any more. People genuinely are staring at me. Oh, Christ, now they’re coming over!’
I once did a film in which I was being chased by wolves. I had a scene where the Alpha of the pack leapt on the hood of my car and stared me down through the windshield. I will never forget staring into those eyes; this wasn’t a dog – not even a tough, bad-ass dog – no, this was a wolf.
I’m fond of my werecats, if only because I have four real-world felines staring at me as I type.
