""I'm so tired of hearing casting directors ask if I have a sore throat. The people who have told me that my voice is distinctive, it's unusual...those people have always been close to my heart."

"It would be hellish to have the pressure of putting on a Hollywood ending or putting in a scene where Vermeer sees Griet washing her breasts" - commenting on why she was glad that Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) was a small foreign production.

"I always check in the mirror to make sure nothing is see-through."

I have a lot of actor friends who worked with their parents closely and have had really horrible experiences. They end up suing or being emancipated. The wonderful thing about my mom [who is also her manager] is that she completely respects my creative weirdness and supports any decision I make.

As long as people keep buying tabloids, they'll keep harassing people in the public eye. They'll make up stories.

On David Hasselhoff, after they had both worked on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004): "I so fancied him when I was young, that to see my name on the credits next to his makes me go all girly. He was a hunk back in those days."

"I have an obsessive character. I manicure my nails at three in the morning because nobody else can do it the right way. Maybe that's the secret to my success."

"It's a great thing to get older and learn. I don't feel bound in any way by how many years I've lived. I identify just as much with my 86-year-old grandmother as I do with my sister."

"People forget what it's like to be a child. When you're a child actress, people sometimes regress into being obnoxious and patronizing. But there's no reason to dumb things down just because you're working with kids."

"What I respect most in people is naturalness and authenticity. I like to be able to see into their soul. I aspire to being a truthful person."

"The most precious moment in life is when you're about to fall in love. You're lying in bed together and he's gazing at you and you're gazing at him and there's a sense that something truly wondrous is about to happen. It's a nervous moment - but it's exhilarating."

"I am very independent. I can look after myself but I still need a lot of love and care."

"I don't talk about my personal relationships, it always ends up kicking you in the face. But I've read a lot of things about myself and think, `Wow! That girl sounds really saucy.'"

"I think that I sort of see other actresses are kind of proud of the way they look and show it off. That's never really been my style. I really don't think that it's disgusting or wrong, if you're 18 you're 18, it's your body, it's your right to show yourself, however, I don't really take a part in that. I like to look nice, but I think that there's ways of doing it that are more tasteful than just wearing a bikini wherever you go."

"I don't know if I've got swept up. It's so shocking when you hear that Calvin Klein wants you for their new campaign. You're like, 'who me?'. I guess you have to decide where you draw the line between you saying, this is fun, pretty and fabulous, and being over-exposed."

"Well, you put a little piece of yourself into every character that you do. Even if you're playing some psychotic person, which of course I'm not, some part of you is in that character and it's hopefully believable. I always come back to the fact that my own instinct is better than something I build in my mind."

"Tons of that stuff comes to me, but a lot of it is awful. All these teenage slaying movies, and movies about girls that have deformities that become cheerleaders and then marry the prom king!"

"I always had the chance to do whatever I wanted to do, my parents were very open about that. Acting has been a passion of mine. I wanted to be in musicals as a kid, and took tap dance, so for me it's a dream come true, my childhood was filled with things that I loved to do, and also very normal things: I lived in New York, I have a family life and went to a regular school. If anything, I look back and think, 'Wow, I did a lot of things that a lot of people don't get to do in their lifetime'."

"It's a place of solace. I love London, it's an amazing city. I've met some wonderful people there and I also have some family there. I'm from New York, so I feel very at home in London. It's like a metropolitan breeding ground for culture, art, music and diversity. It's a beautiful city, with beautiful history. In Hollywood, it's hard to step outside of the circle once you're in it. But in London I was really moved by how accepted I felt there. There was definitely less need to wear my big sunglasses!"

"I came home and I thought I was going to die. I was in agony. I had muscles that had atrophied. I couldn't run any longer and it was only the first day. But, actually Ewan was in the same boat. He had black and blue marks all over him. So, it wasn't so bad since someone else was in agony." [On filming The Island]

"I don't think there's any kind of preparation for sudden celebrity. I think you almost have this slight nervous breakdown when that kind of media attention happens. I mean, you're doing the same kind of thing that you do all the time, only you have to make these weird adjustments. Like, you're buying a slice of pizza and somebody's outside photographing you which is weird - that's not normal! It's very uncomfortable."

"Everyone in Hollywood is so damn skinny and you constantly feel like you're not skinny enough. But I have 'fat days' and I accept that I'm never going to be rail thin. It's hard not to feel pressure in this industry and I already use anti-aging products on my skin. I try not to let the pressure get to me but Los Angeles is a very hard place to be unless you have people here that love you. It can be very, very lonely, and it can eat you up if you don't take care of yourself."

"I was driving through Los Angeles and I look up and see the biggest photo of me I have ever seen in my life on a massive ad space. I screamed and slammed on the brakes. I couldn't believe it. It's very strange to see my cleavage the size of a brontosaurus. My breasts were huge. I had long hair and my goodness, I couldn't get past the cleavage."