Reese Witherspoon

People want to try and move you into a place where you can be easily identifiable by every woman in America – to be this very likable woman in a romantic comedy. And it’s really hard for me. I just don’t see myself as the girl that everybody likes. I never have been and I don’t know how to be that person.

I love to cook comfort food. I’ll make fish and vegetables or meat and vegetables and potatoes or rice. The ritual of it is fun for me, and the creativity of it.

I think movies are great and I have a great time making them but they’re not what keeps you warm at night, or what’s ultimately the most important thing in anyone’s life journey.

I read while the kids play. I can see them from the kitchen window. And I’m a fast reader.

I was thinking about why I make movies, and I know why. Life is hard. It’s nice to go escape and have a good time at the movies. If I can give people a movie about hope, love and the future, then I’ve done my job.

[on the harsh standards placed on women by Hollywood] It’s one of those endless competitions, but it’s like running a race toward nothing. “There’s no winning. You’re never going to win the thin race. You’re never going to win the pretty race. You’re never going to win the smart race. You’re never going to win the funny race. I just want to be the best version of myself I can be.

Politics: ‘Poli’a Latin word meaning ‘many’; and “tics” meaning ‘bloodsucking creatures’.

I know without our fans and the devotion of our fans we wouldn’t be here. I don’t mean to put them down, but I’m just stating a fact that it is hard to play to people that see you all the time and it takes a lot of fun out of it in some ways.

[On a drunken experience] I seemed to have lost all control of my body. My brother Gary found me outside the house in my underwear.

If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.

I’ve never done a romantic comedy, because it seems they can’t just tell a love story. It’s always something like a radio station does a poll and decides these two people will get along, and if they do they get a million dollars. You don’t need all of that to get into a love story.

Oh God, don’t make me come across as a moaner. I think it’s unacceptable to moan about anything when you’re lucky enough to do what I do. What I’m trying to say is I’m more settled now. The thirties have calmed me down. I know who my real friends are, I know what I want to do. In your twenties, you just do everything. It’s just overload all the time. In the thirties, you learn that it’s OK to go to bed early if you want.

If I didn’t do what I do, I wouldn’t be as young as I am.

All you could do was to see them. We were backstage when the Beatles were on and you could just about hear a noise. It was just literally screaming.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

I think I’ve done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven’t yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe I’d reached that peak. But I’m 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, I’ll be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.

When you are writing a script, you can’t help but stop and daydream about which actors are going to play the parts, and I kind of imagined Natalie Portman. Not just because she is beautiful, because obviously she is, but she is a wonderful actress who hasn’t had a chance in a long time to show the world how talented she is.

I don’t believe your soul mate has to share your politics.

[on “The Cell”] I didn’t really want to do it, from reading the script. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It was (Cell director) Tarsem (Singh) and his visuals that made me want to do it. It’s almost like you walk through a museum exhibit of an artist in a dark period of his life.

If Kyle had ever been dedicated to nothing but driving, he’d have been really, really good. But he wanted to do a lot of other things. He’s always been that way. Still is.

I did Jonathon Ross last year and he said ‘do people do impressions of David Brent?’ and I went ‘well, they can’t really because he’s such a normal bloke’. Then, after the show, me and Ross are walking through the car park and this bloke jumps out and goes ‘der-ner-ner-ner-ner’, does the David Brent dance and runs away. Jonathon Ross was in hysterics: ‘all that shit you came out with and then some bloke jumps out and runs away’. But on the whole it doesn’t really happen.