Happy Birthday Carrie Fisher!

You have owned my likeness, lo all these years, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send you a check for a couple of bucks.

From here on out, there's just reality. I think that's what maturity is: a stoic response to endless reality. But then, what do I know?

Please stop debating about whether or not I aged well. Unfortunately it hurts all of my feelings. My body hasn’t aged as well as I have. Blow us.

It can't hurt to go to the people you love, whose blood type courses through your veins and whose DNA, from a certain angle, contains many of the same markings as yours. You don't have to take their advice, but let them share their version of solutions to life's difficulties. Good or bad - it could be interesting.

Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic – not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival. An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder.

I envy people who have the capacity to sit with another human being and find them endlessly interesting, I would rather watch TV. Of course this becomes eventually known to the other person.

I slept with some nerd. I hope it was George... I took too many drugs to remember.

Two of the saddest words in the English language are, 'What party?' And L.A. is the 'What party?' capital of the world.

I’m not happy about being older, except what are the options?

I've got to stop getting obsessed with human beings and fall in love with a chair. Chairs have everything human beings have to offer, and less, which is obviously what I need. Less emotional feedback, less warmth, less approval, less patience and less response. The less the merrier. Chairs it is. I must furnish my heart with feelings for furniture.

The father who flipped out about it, ‘What am I going to tell my kid about why she’s in that outfit?’ Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.

I think of my body as a side effect of my mind.

I don’t think it’s that revealing, or it’s certainly not offensive. It’s not unkind about him. It’s flattering. I mean, the way people are reacting to it is funny to me, too. I’d do him at 73.

You know what's funny about death? I mean other than absolutely nothing at all? You'd think we could remember finding out we weren't immortal. Sometimes I see children sobbing airports and I think, "Aww. They've just been told.”

I am Princess Leia, no matter what. If I were trying to get a good table, I wouldn’t say I wrote Postcards. Or, if I’m trying to get someone to take my check and I don’t have ID, I wouldn’t say: “Have you seen Harry Met Sally?” Princess Leia will be on my tombstone.

People are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big of a hit. Yes, we all knew. The only one who didn't know was George.

He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her with his penis. This made marriage to my mother awkward.

You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever. 
Well, with manic depression, it's sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse - and that just sounds like a fantastic weekend in Vegas to me!

Now I say I'm a diarist with an explanation I'll get back to you on. Someday I may try and write in memoir form.

Do not let what you think they think of you make you stop and question everything you are.

I've seen pictures of myself with makeup on, and I look like those women who look like they're wearing makeup so they can look young, and I don't think that's good. They have all these products now called - wait, what's it called, it's my favorite - youth suppressant, or age go away; they don't work.

Having waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything...I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill. It’s better than being bad at being insane, right? How tragic would it be to be runner-up for Bipolar Woman of the Year?

Kevin Smith is a very challenging conversationalist and Jay has many great stories.

She wanted so to be tranquil, to be someone who took walks in the late-afternoon sun, listening to the birds and crickets and feeling the whole world breathe. Instead, she lived in her head like a madwoman locked in a tower, hearing the wind howling through her hair and waiting for someone to come and rescue her from feeling things so deeply that her bones burned.

As you get older, the pickings get slimmer, but the people don't.

The only thing worse than being hurt is everyone knowing that you're hurt.

I spent a year in a 12-step program, really committed, because I could not believe what had happened - that I might have killed myself.

And when you're young you want to fit in. Hell, I still want to fit in with certain humans, but as you get older you get a little more discriminating.

All of us are looking for an outside ordeal that will internally change us.

Sometimes I think all I want to find is a mean guy and make him be nice to me. Or maybe a nice guy who's a little bit mean to me. But they're usually too nice too soon or too mean too long.

I really love the internet. They say chat-rooms are the trailer park of the internet but I find it amazing.

If anyone reads this when I have passed to the big bad beyond I shall be posthumorously embarrassed. I shall spend my entire afterlife blushing.

I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I'm still surviving it, but bring it on. Better me than you.

I mean, that's at least in part why I ingested chemical waste - it was a kind of desire to abbreviate myself. To present the CliffNotes of the emotional me, as opposed to the twelve-column read.
I used to refer to my drug use as putting the monster in the box. I wanted to be less, so I took more - simple as that. Anyway, I eventually decided that the reason Dr. Stone had told me I was hypomanic was that he wanted to put me on medication instead of actually treating me. So I did the only rational thing I could do in the face of such as insult - I stopped talking to Stone, flew back to New York, and married Paul Simon a week later.

Drugs made me feel more normal.

Guys are great before you know who they are,' said Lucy. 'They're great when you're still with who they might be.

Some of my memories will never return. They are lost - along with the crippling feeling of defeat and hopelessness. Not a tremendous price to pay.

I don’t hate hardly ever, and when I love, I love for miles and miles. A love so big it should either be outlawed or it should have a capital and its own currency.

You can't find true affection in Hollywood because everyone does the fake affection so well.

My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that's just positive tension.

Instant gratification takes too long.

I quote fictional characters, because I'm a fictional character myself!

My mother's career was over at 40 but she was still trying to be everyone's buddy, always smiling for the cameras.

I suspect that no matter what happens I will allow it to hurt me. Eat away at my insides, as it were—as it will be. As it always has been. Why am I so accessible? Why do I give myself to people who will always and should always remain strangers? I have always relied on the cruelty of strangers and I must stop it now.

What I wrote all the time when I was a kid - I don't want to call it 'poetry,' because it wasn't poetry. I was not that kind of a writer. I was a rhymer. I was a fan of Dorothy Parker's, so maybe I wrote poetry to that extent, but my main focus was the humor of it, and word construction, and the slant. Your words, it's a very powerful experience.

Statistics say that a range of mental disorders affects more than one in four Americans in any given year. That means millions of Americans are totally batshit.
but having perused the various tests available that they use to determine whether you're manic depressive. OCD, schizo-affective, schizophrenic, or whatever, I'm surprised the number is that low. So I have gone through a bunch of the available tests, and I've taken questions from each of them, and assembled my own psychological evaluation screening which I thought I'd share with you.
So, here are some of the things that they ask to determine if you're mentally disordered
1. In the last week, have you been feeling irritable?
2. In the last week, have you gained a little weight?
3. In the last week, have you felt like not talking to people?
4. Do you no longer get as much pleasure doing certain things as you used to?
5. In the last week, have you felt fatigued?
6. Do you think about sex a lot?
If you don't say yes to any of these questions either you're lying, or you don't speak English, or you're illiterate, in which case, I have the distinct impression that I may have lost you a few chapters ago.” 
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking
tags: americans, crazy, illness, mad, madman, manic-depressive-ocd, mental, mental-heath, mental-illness, psychiatry, schizo-affective, schizophrenic, statistics, statistics-humor, test 27 likes Like
“Someone has to stand still for you to love them. My choices are always on the run.

I like performing. I like partnering with an audience.

We live in America,' he said. 'Everyone who speaks English understands you. How they interpret you is something else.

I'm fine, but I'm bipolar. I'm on seven medications, and I take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the illness I have. I'm never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It's like being a diabetic.

I not only feel better about myself because these people are also fucked up (and I guess this gives us a sense of community), but I feel better because look how much these fellow fuckups managed to accomplish!

Mothers are great. They outlast everything. But when they're bad, they're the worst thing that can happen.

“I’m a hick,” I recall saying to him. “No,” Harrison answered. “You think you’re less than you are. You’re a smart hick.” And then, “You have the eyes of a doe and the balls of a samurai.” 

I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know. It was something I always did.

Don't you see? We've become smart enough to justify stupid behavior. Like, 'I'm angry at him and I didn't express it, so I turned my anger inward and now it's depression, so in order to feel good again, what I should do is call him and express my anger.' It's like, if we can make it sound smart enough, we're allowed to do stupid things.

I'll never be known for my work with boundaries.

In my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train.

If anything, my mother taught me how to sur-thrive. That's my word for it.

You know the bad thing about being a survivor... You keep having to get into difficult situations in order to show off your gift.

Females get hired along procreative lines. After 40, we're kind of cooked.

That's the way it works in movies. Something happens that has an impact on someone's life, and based on that impact, his life shifts course. Well, that's not how it happens in life. Something has an impact on you, and then your life stays the same, and you think, 'Well, what about the impact?' You have epiphanies all the time. They just don't have any effect.

Anything you can do in excess for the wrong reasons is exciting to me.

Good anecdote--bad reality.

I started out doing my mother's nightclub act, and I had stage fright.

The one I wore to kill Jabba (my favorite moment in my own personal film history), which I highly recommend your doing: find an equivalent of killing a giant space slug in your head and celebrate that.

I'm in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say 'Get younger,' because that's how easy it is.

I act like someone in a bomb shelter trying to raise everyone’s spirits.

I found out when I did the Oprah Winfrey show that there was a cookie jar of me. So she gave it to me. I had no idea prior to that that it even existed.

Sometimes I feel like I've got my nose pressed up against the window of a bakery, only I'm the bread.

Over time, I've paid attention, taken notes and forgotten easily half of everything I've gone through.

You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.

I enjoy taking jobs that make fun of me - or me as Princess Leia, or me as the writer, or whatever, as some idea.

What you'll have of me after I journey to that great Death Star in the sky is an extremely accomplished daughter, a few books, and a picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini lounging on a giant drooling squid, behind a newscaster informing you of the passing of Princess Leia after a long battle with her head.

You get to choose what monsters you want to slay. I'm sorry to say this again, but let's face it - the Force is with you.

It’s not nice being inside my head. It’s a nice place to visit but I don’t want to live in here. It’s too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls.

I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.

I thought you had to go to Iraq to get post traumatic stress disorder. And you do. But you can also just come on over to my house!

I went to a doctor and told him I felt normal on acid, that I was a light bulb in a world of moths. That is what the manic state is like.

Youth and beauty are not accomplishments.

I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in 'Singin' In The Rain.'

The crew was mostly men. That's how it was and that's pretty much how it still is. It's a man's world & show business is a man's meal with women generously sprinkled through it like over-qualified spice.

You can't find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well.

And not that it matters, but my mother is not a lesbian! She's just a really, really bad heterosexual.

In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.

But let's face it, the world of sex is weird no matter how you look at it. I mean-fourteen hours after you've had your face smashed into someone's genitals, you're walking down the street with the boy as though that were all "just fine, thank you, how are you!”

Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence.

It’s important to be able to distinguish the difference between a problem and an inconvenience.

My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents' attention: an audience.

...about a year after that, I was invited to go to a mental hospital. And, you know, you don't want to be rude, so you go.

I always wrote. I wrote from when I was 12. That was therapeutic for me in those days. I wrote things to get them out of feeling them, and onto paper. So writing in a way saved me, kept me company. I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn't know.

Mom brought me some peanut butter cookies and a biography of Judy Garland. She told me she thought my problem was that I was too impatient, my fuse was too short, that I was only interested in instant gratification. I said, “Instant gratification takes too long.” The glib martyr.”

I have a harder time eating properly than I do exercising. It's easier for me to add an activity than to deny myself something. And when I do lose the weight, I don't like that it makes me feel good about myself. It's not who I am.

It’s very dangerous to have someone like you, because one day he’ll find that you are not the person he thought you were.

There's a line I have that our family was designed more for public than for private. But there are definitely some things that are only mine. I am someone who dreams at night, and you don't know what I'm dreaming.

I should let people I meet do the work of piecing me together until they can complete, or mostly complete, the puzzle. And when they’re finished they can look at the picture that they’ve managed to piece together and decide whether they like it or not. On their own time. Let them discover you.

I don't like looking at myself. I have such bad body dysmorphia.

There are two things that I know for certain guys are good for: pushing swings and killing insects.

We treat beauty like an accomplishment, and that is insane. Everyone in L.A. says, 'Oh, you look good,' and you listen for them to say you've lost weight. It's never 'How are you?' or 'You seem happy!'

The hairstyle that was chosen would impact how everyone—every filmgoing human—would envision me for the rest of my life. (And probably even beyond—it’s hard to imagine any TV obituary not using a photo of that cute little round-faced girl with goofy buns on either side of her inexperienced head.)

I knew what show business was, which was why I didn't want in on that action. I saw what happens! You get it, and then you lose it.

The only one who didn't know was George Lucas. We kept it from him, because we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression--and he fooled us even then. He got Industrial Light and Magic to change his facial expressions for him and THX sound to make the noise of a face-changing expression.

The manic end of is a lot of fun.

I heard someone say once that many of us only seem able to find heaven by backing away from hell. And while the place that I've arrived at in my life may not precisely be everyone's idea of heavenly, I could swear sometimes -- I hear angels sing.

I have been in 'Star Wars' since I was 20. And they're not just doing some goofy sequel, like, to service the hunger of it. It actually has been thought out and it has integrity and they took it seriously, which they didn't have to do, you know? It's hard to do, given the appetite and the angles from which everybody's coming at it.

I’m frightened of the power I have given him over me and of how he will almost certainly abuse it, merely by not being fully aware he has it.

There is no point at which you can say, 'Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap.'

Because what can you do with people that like you, except, of course, inevitably disappoint them?

Writing is a very calming thing for me. 

And I ultimately not only addressed it, I named my two moods Roy and Pam. Roy is Rollicking Roy, the wild ride of a mood, and Pam is Sediment Pam, who stands on the shore and sobs. (Pam stands for “piss and moan.”) One mood is the meal, and the next mood is the check.

I think that the truth is a really stern taskmistress.

Kidding yourself doesn’t require that you have a sense of humor. But a sense of humor comes in handy for almost everything else.

I watched my parents' fame diminish - as I was getting more conscious, their celebrity was going back down the mountain.

I could charm the birds out of everyone's trees but his.

I don't want to be thought of as a survivor because you have to continue getting involved in difficult situations to show off that particular gift, and I'm not interested in doing that anymore.

You're not really famous until you´re a Pez dispenser.

You knew how humiliating that is as an experience for celebrities to be less of a celebrity. There's no class to adjust to being less famous, and you don't think you have to worry about it. But you do.

Vultures are difficult to charm unless you’re off somewhere rotting in the noonday sun. Casually rotting…a glib cadaver.

I have a mess in my head sometimes, and there's something very satisfying about putting it into words. Certainly it's not something that you're in charge of, necessarily, but writing about it, putting it into your words, can be a very powerful experience.

Sometimes she’d just walk around the city alone. Watch the people, smell the food, the bus exhaust, the smoke coming up through the grating. She’d feel protected somehow, found a sense of belonging in the hectic sprawl. And the next minute she’d feel like the one who couldn’t break the code, hit the right stride, catch the wave. Potholes and traffic and bums, oh my. With all the honking and the hum of movement, the living, breathing blur of noise gently pressing in on her, the great purr of the Metropolitan Cat turning into a dull roar. She’d feel so silent on the inside, her head as quiet as a stretch of sand, a cathedral silently worshipping the life that was all around her, storing it up for later when she needed some 'too much' to draw upon.

Along with aging comes life experience, so in every way that is consistent with even being human, Leia has changed.

I don't think you ever get to relax. I mean, sure there's a couple of people who could, but I bet they don't. Because by the time they get to where they could relax, they don't. Because by the time they get to where they could relax, they've gotten completely used to not being able to. How do you just suddenly become somebody who relaxes? The kind of ambition you need to get to that place is not relaxing. It's searing. I think there's probably something about living your whole life in a popularity contest -- trying to get people to like you who you couldn't give a flying fuck about -- that kills relaxation.

It's the most amazing thing to be able to forgive.

My life is like a lone, forgotten Q-Tip in the second-to-last drawer.

It really annoys me that I'm vain, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to discard that tendency.

Trying relentlessly to make you love me, but I don’t want the love—I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me—how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?

I am a very discreet human when it comes to other people.

Anyway, at a certain point in my early twenties, my mother started to become worried about my obviously ever-increasing drug ingestion. So she ended up doing what any concerned parent would do. She called Cary Grant.

I outlasted my problems.

Movies were meant to stay on the screen, flat and large and colorful, gathering you up into their sweep of story, carrying you rollicking along to the end, then releasing you back into your unchanged life. But this movie misbehaved. It leaked out of the theater, poured off the screen, affected a lot of people so deeply that they required endless talismans and artifacts to stay connected to it.

Certainly there are people who like me, but then there are those who don't know me who gossip about me. You can't believe the things I've heard.

What’s the riddle? Me talking so much And saying so little.

I overheard people saying, 'She thinks she's so great because she's Debbie Reynolds' daughter!' And I didn't like it; it made me different from other people, and I wanted to be the same.

Immediate gratification takes too long.

She has been more than a mother than me - not much, but definitely more... She's been an unsolicited stylist, interior decorator and marriage counselor... Admittedly, I found it difficult to share my mother with her adoring fans, who treated her like she was part of their family.

I am someone who wants very much to be popular. I don’t just want you to like me, I want to be one of the most joy-inducing human beings that you’ve ever encountered. I want to explode on your night sky like fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong.

She's an immensely powerful woman, and I just admire my mother very much.

“Never let 'em see you ache"; that's what Mr. Mayer always said. Or was it ass; "Never let 'em see your ass"?

I'm very sane about how crazy I am.

You see, even after decades of therapy and workshops and retreats and twelve-steps and meditation and even experiencing a very weird session of rebirthings, even after rappeling down mountains and walking over hot coals and jumping out of airplanes and watching elephant races and climbing the Great Wall of China, and even after floating down the Amazon and taking ayahuasca with an ex-husband and a witch doctor and speaking in tongues and fasting (both nutritional and verbal), I remained pelted and plagued by feelings of uncertainty and despair. Yes, even after sleeping with a senator, and waking up next to a dead friend, and celebrating Michael Jackson’s last Christmas with him and his kids, I still did not feel—how shall I put this?—mentally sound.

Even my parents sort of went along with the assumption that they were a good couple, but they probably weren't a very good couple.

To make him important in one’s life requires an overactive imagination. Unfortunately, mine never knows when to quit.

I think I do overshare. It's my way of trying to understand myself.

If you have a need to be comfortable all the time—well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.

I trust myself. I trust my instincts. I know what I'm gonna do, what I can do, what I can't do. I've been through a lot, and I could go through more, but I hope I don't have to. But if I did, I'd be able to do it. I'm not going to enjoy dying, but there's not much prep for that.

I liked being Princess Leia. Or Princess Leia’s being me. Over time I thought that we’d melded into one. I don’t think you could think of Leia without my lurking in that thought somewhere.

I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.

The thing about having it all is, it should include having the ability to have it all. Maybe there are some people who know how to have it all. They're probably off in a group somewhere, laughing at those of us who have it all but don't know how to.

I fear dying. Anything with pain associated with it, I don't like. 

I do not want to take part in my life. It can just go on without me; I’m not giving it any help. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to talk to it, I don’t want it anywhere near me. It takes too much energy. I refuse to be a part of it. If you have a life, even if you get used to it ruining your sleep, spoiling your fun, requiring your somewhat undivided attention, what overwhelming relief one must feel when it finally skips town.

If you claim something, you can own it.

If Harrison was unable to see that I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven) then he wasn't as smart as I thought he was – as I knew he was.

I've been there for a couple of people when they were dying; it didn't look like fun. But if I was gonna do it, I'd want someone like me around. And I will be there!

Do you or do you not like wearing earrings in your mouth that will one day smell like your ex-boyfriend's dick?

I have two moods. One is Roy, rollicking Roy, the wild ride of a mood. And Pam, sediment Pam, who stands on the shore and sobs... Sometimes the tide is in, sometimes it's out.

Thanks for the good times. Thank you for being so generous with what you have withheld. Thank you for being the snake in my grass, the thorn in my side, the pain in my ass, the knife in my back, the wrench in my works, the fly in my ointment. My Achilles’ heart. Caught in a whirlpool without an anchor, relaxing into it, calmly going under for one of many last times.

I have been in 'Star Wars' since I was 20.

I highly recommend your doing: find an equivalent of killing a giant space slug in your head and celebrate that.

It's difficult to know what to say to someone whose partner has cheated on them.

I've got to learn something from my mistakes instead of establishing a new record to break.

That's why 'Star Wars' is appealing. You watch someone fight the perilous monster.

My panic is rising again. My sense of isolation and worthlessness. And no other senses worth mentioning apparently. It's not nice being inside my head. It's a nice place to visit but I don't want to live here. It's too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls. I'm tired of it. That same old person, day in and day out. I'd like to try something else. I tried to neaten my mind, file everything away into tidy little thoughts, but it only got more and more cluttered. My mind has a mind of its own. I try to define my limits by seeing just how far I can go, and I find that I passed them weeks ago. And I've got to find my way back.

Mistakes are a drag, because you get in the area of regret and self-pity.

...one of those unfortunate women who did not find nice men interesting. She found undesirables desirable. She sought out unpleasant boyfriends, then complained about them as though the government had allocated them to her.

Movies are dreams! And they work on you subliminally.

Never let 'em see you ache. That's what Mr. Mayer used to say. Or was it ass? Never let 'em see your ass.

People see me and they squeal like tropical birds or seals stranded on the beach.

I confide in everyone. I have no restricted private self, reserved specifically for certain trusted special people. I trust and mistrust anyone. I have traveled a full circle. But this time, on returning to zero again, I am able to act out the mistake more adeptly. I am on my way to becoming a very skilled loser. A specialist, a loser to end all losers. A flair for failing. I do it with style and finesse.

I waited for my daughter, Billie, to come to me with her troubles - but I'm glad I didn't hold my breath.

If wishes were horses mine would be glue 

Everything is negotiable. Whether or not the negotiation is easy is another thing.

I am always disappointed with someone who loves me - how perfect can he be if he can't see through me?

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Not that writing on my notepads managed to actually empty my mind - though some would argue - but I was grateful to relieve the overflow.

I have a chemical imbalance that, in its most extreme state, will lead me to a mental hospital.

Years ago, there were tribes that roamed the earth, and every tribe had a magic person. Well, now, as you know, all the tribes have dispersed, but every so often you meet a magic person, and every so often, you meet someone from your tribe.

I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.

As we all know, there is no underwear in space.

What I always wanna tell young people now: Pay attention. This isn't gonna happen again. Rather than try to understand it as it's going along, have it go along for a while and then understand it.

I tell my younger friends that one day they’ll be at a bar playing pool and they’ll look up at the television set and there will be a picture of Princess Leia with two dates underneath, and they’ll say, “Awww—she said that would happen.” And then they’ll go back to playing pool.

I did masses of opiates religiously.

Offstage, I couldn't put things into words, and that was the one thing I'd always been able to rely on. Putting my feelings into words and praying they wouldn't be able to get out again.

I've totally embraced it. I like Princess Leia. I like how she was feisty.

I was something women and men could agree on. They didn’t like me in the same way, but they liked me with the same intensity, and were all fine with the other sex liking me, too. Isn’t that weird? Think about it. And then stop and ponder something actually important.

Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.

I wish that I could leave myself alone. I wish that I could finally feel that I punished myself enough. That I deserved time off for all my bad behavior. Let myself off the hook, drag myself off the rack where I am both torturer and torturee.

Leia follows me like a vague smell.

I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia. I had no idea how profoundly true that was and how long forever was.

One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of.
They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.

I said, “Instant gratification takes too long.” The glib martyr.

There were days I could barely struggle into a size 46 or 48, months of larges and XXLs, and endless rounds of leggings with the elastic at the waist stretched to its limit and beyond - topped with the fashion equivalent of a tea cozy. And always black, because I was in mourning for my slimmer self.

I may not take cristicism well, but that doesn't mean I'm not hearing it. I'll hear it later. Right now I'm storing it in my delayed response area, because it's hard for me. I wish I was someone who welcomed cristicism and immediately understood its valeu, but I'm not, and if I look unhappy about this, I am.

Anyway, George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes one look at the dress and says, 'You can't wear a bra under that dress.'
So, I say, 'Okay, I'll bite. Why?'
And he says, 'Because... there's no underwear in space.'
I promise you this is true, and he says it with such conviction too! Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn't see any bras or panties or briefs anywhere.
Now, George came to my show when it was in Berkeley. He came backstage and explained why you can't wear your brassiere in other galaxies, and I have a sense you will be going to outer space very soon, so here's why you cannot wear your brassiere, per George. So, what happens is you go to space and you become weightless. So far so good, right? But then your body expands??? But your bra doesn't- so you get strangled by your own bra. Now I think that this would make a fantastic obit- so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.

BOTH HANDS, ONE HEART, TWO MOODS, AND A HEAD.

I always kept a diary - not a diary like, 'Dear Diary, we got up at 5 A.M., and I wore the weird hair again and that white dress! Hi-yeee!' I'd just write.

Youth and beauty are not accomplishments. They're the temporary happy byproducts of time and/or DNA. Don't hold your breath for either.

Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.

I had to comport myself with something approaching dignity, at twenty.

He's a very strange guy, my father. I can't get mad at him because he's so adorable.

I signed my likeness away. Every time I look in the mirror, I have to send Lucas a couple of bucks.

There's no room for demons when you're self-possessed.

I am closer to who I want to be when I am alone lately. With people, I hear my voice and I just wonder who or what I’m doing all this for. Spreading myself out in front of people. Devaluing my ostensible worth by being so readily available to almost any random pedestrian who wanders into the crosswalk of my focus. If someone is within an earshot I shoot off at the mouth.

If my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that's unacceptable.

I don’t want to make anyone else look stupid. That’s a privilege I reserve for myself.

Take your broken heart, make it into art.

And as much as I may have joked about Star Wars over the years, I liked that I was in those films. Particularly as the only girl in an all-boy fantasy.

My father was a joyous, joyous spirit, he really was. He was a hedonist, that was just - he enjoyed life, thrust up to the elbows with it. He was a terrible father. I don't know that he was parented that well.

Anyway, I suppose in part I'm telling this story now because I want all of you - and I do mean all - to know that I wasn't always a somewhat-overweight woman without an upper lip to her name who can occasionally be found sleeping behind her face and always thinking in her mouth.

I feel I'm very sane about how crazy I am.

It's a man's world and show business is a man's meal, with women generously sprinkled through it like overqualified spice.

No, as it turns out, I really like being congratulated on my weight loss. I like it so much, it's tragic.

ometimes I'm afraid I'm happy, but because I expect it to be something else, I question the experience. So now, when in doubt," she shrugged with true bravado, "I'll assume I'm happy.”

I thought I would inaugurate a Bipolar Pride Day. You know, with floats and parades and stuff! On the floats we would get the depressives, and they wouldn’t even have to leave their beds - we’d just roll their beds out of their houses, and they could continue staring off miserably into space. And then for the manics, we’d have the manic marching band, with manics laughing and talking and shopping and fucking and making bad judgment calls.

I have been Princess Leia exclusively. It's been a part of my life for 40 years.

Actually, I am a failed anorexic. I have anorexic thinking, but I can't seem to muster the behavoir.

What I've realized recently is that the difference between me and Mickey Mouse is, there's not a man that can go and say, 'Look, can you get me in any faster? I'm Mickey Mouse.' Whereas I can go in and say, 'Look, could you get me a table faster? I'm Princess Leia.'

No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.

I don't want to be a victim.

I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere.

I was street smart, but unfortunately the street was Rodeo Drive.

What worries me is, what if this guy is really the one for me and I just haven't had enough therapy yet for me to be comfortable with having found him.

So when I was 24, someone suggested to me that I was bipolar, and I thought that was ridiculous. I just thought he was trying to get out of treating me. But he was also responding to the chaotic nature of my life.

Life is a cruel, horrible joke and I am the punch line.

My comfort wasn't the most important thing - my getting through to the other side of difficult feelings was. However long it might seem to take, and however unfair it might seem, it was my job to do it.

Happy is one of the many things I'm likely to be over the course of a day and certainly over the course of a lifetime. But I think if you have the expectation that you're going to be happy throughout your life--more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time--well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.

The world of manic depression is a world of bad judgment calls.

If you look at the person someone chooses to have a relationship with, you’ll see what they think of themselves.

I was born into big celebrity. It could only diminish.

You know how I always seem to be struggling, even when the situation doesn't call for it?

It creates community when you talk about private things.

Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?

I don't think Christmas is necessarily about things. It's about being good to one another, it's about the Christian ethic, it's about kindness.

I rarely cry. I save my feelings up inside me like I have something more specific in mind for them. I am waiting for the exact perfect situation and then BOOM! I'll explode in a light show of feeling and emotion - a pinata stuffed with tender nuances and pent-up passions.

People want me to say that I'm sick of playing Leia and that it ruined my life. If my life was that easy to ruin, it deserved to be ruined.

I call people sometimes hoping not only that they’ll verify the fact that I’m alive but that they’ll also, however indirectly, convince me that being alive is an appropriate state for me to be in. Because sometimes I don’t think it’s such a bright idea. Is it worth the trouble it takes trying to live life so that someday you get something worthwhile out of it, instead of it almost always taking worthwhile things out of you?

One of the great things to pretend is that you're not only alright, you're in great shape. Now to have that come true - I've actually gone on stage depressed and that's worked its magic on me, 'cause if I can convince you that I'm alright, then maybe I can convince me.

I need to write. It keeps me focused for long enough to complete thoughts. To let each train of thought run to its conclusion and let a new one begin. It keeps me thinking. I’m afraid that if I stop writing I’ll stop thinking and start feeling.

Going to AA helped me to see that there were other people who had problems that had found a way to talk about them and find relief and humor through that. 

Look,' he said, 'I don't think we should continue this discussion. I don't like this side of you.' 'I'm not a box,' she said 'I don't have sides. This is it. One side fits all. This is it.

Happy Birthday Hugh Jackman!

I have lots of older siblings, and as they started to leave the house, I went from cooking once a week to twice, three times, and so on. After a while, it was just like making the bed.

I've never heard my dad say a bad word about anybody. He always keeps his emotions in check and is a true gentleman. I was taught that losing it was indulgent, a selfish act.

I'm a mad lover of sport. You cannot say a bad word to me about sports. So I know business is involved and I know it can be cynical, and, of course, I watch it, but for me it's pure.

My father was an army champion boxer... in the British army. And so he loved boxing and talked it up as a sport. But then when my brother and I were beating the crap out of each other, he was always trying to tone it down. But I am a fan of boxing.

If you ask my wife, the biggest fault is my inability around the house. She says the only thing handy about me is that I'm close by. And, I have a terrible memory. I'm bad at saying no. I often double-book. There are a lot of things.

I have a wife and a son, but the gay rumors have started. I guess it's a sign that I'm moving up the ladder.

I was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents.

The most scared I'd ever been was the first time I sang at a rugby match, Australia versus New Zealand, in front of one hundred thousand people. I had a panic attack the night before because people have been booed off and never worked again... just singing one song, the national anthem.

My favorite play in drama school was 'The Bacchae.' It's about a king who literally gets eaten alive by all the women in the play in a kind of orgy - it's related to the word 'bacchanal' - and I loved that idea of animalistic chaos and following our own desires.

What I respect as far as in myself and in others is the spirit of just doing it. For better or worse, it may work and it may not, but I'm going to go for it. Ultimately I probably prefer to be respected for that than whether it works out or not, either winning or losing.

When I made 'Real Steel,' the director actually had the robots in the monitor, so he knew where everything was. So technically, there's been advancements. But at the end of the day, movies are about story and characters, so all the other stuff is great, but unless you have those two elements, then you've got nothing.

At which point should we let go and do what we want to do, and when should we submit to rules? Coming to terms with our true natures and who we really are has always been a fascination to humans. I know it fascinates me.

In terms of theater, there's not a more supportive theater community than in New York. It's really kind of a real thrill to go there. I mean, don't forget, I'm a boy from the suburbs of Sydney, so getting to New York is a huge, huge thrill.

For me that's one of the great indulgences in life - a hand-tailored suit, and a great pair of handmade shoes.

I'm not doing Bond.

I love food, all types of food. I love Korean food, Japanese, Italian, French. In Australia, we don't have a distinctive Australian food, so we have food from everywhere all around the world. We're very multicultural, so we grew up with lots of different types of food.

There was a whole display set up of all the X-Men paraphernalia. My wife couldn't resist telling this 5-year-old boy that I was Wolverine. The little kid looked up at me and he was staring at me.

Being on Broadway is the modern equivalent of being a monk. I sleep a lot, eat a lot, and rest a lot.

As a boy, I'd always had an interest in theater. But the idea at my school was that drama and music were to round out the man. It wasn't what one did for a living. I got over that.

I have done many movies that people hadn't seen. 'The Fountain,' I spent a year on that. 'The Prestige' with Chris Nolan, and 'Australia.' From my perspective it's very satisfying. Some movies people see and other movies they don't. 'Wolverine,' 'X Men,' I know that in some level people know me just for that and it's fine for me.

By nature I'm not a brooder.

But in another world, another life, probably growing up in another country, I might have been more of a dancer.

Actually, I graduated from university as a journalist.

Now I meditate twice a day for half an hour. In meditation, I can let go of everything. I'm not Hugh Jackman. I'm not a dad. I'm not a husband. I'm just dipping into that powerful source that creates everything. I take a little bath in it.

I never wanted to go longer than five years off the stage. Not necessarily musicals, but just doing a play or something.

I'm a big goofball, you know. Don't tell anyone that, but I'm a big goofball. In Australia we call it a dag.

You have to eat before you train. Otherwise, that really intense training, after about 40 minutes you start to flag.

I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car.

I'm always very nervous about the word 'dancer' next to my name because anyone who's really trained in dance will go, 'This guy's fudging so badly.'

Now I meet people with full-color Wolverine tattoos on their backs. Thank God I did okay, because I think if I hadn't, they'd spit on me in the street.

I wanted to be a lawyer. Then a journalist. Actually, I graduated from university as a journalist.

There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been.

One of things I'd love to do one day is a Shakespeare with Trevor Nunn. I've done musicals with him, but never Shakespeare. There's no one better.

I just love making a fool out of myself. I made my living as a clown at kids' parties for about three years.

Singing is incredibly physical.

As you get older you have more respect and empathy for your parents. Now I have a great relationship with both of them.

Because I believe actually the more you do something, the less frightening it becomes because you start to realize the outcome is not as important as you think.

I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people.

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

I'd sell my soul for a good cause.

I do heavy weights in the morning for about an hour, and then I do 45 minutes of higher-volume lifting in the afternoon. My least favorite is the legs... I do quite a few chin-ups and rows. I do mostly old-school lifting with a lot of squats.

Coming to terms with our true natures and who we really are has always been a fascination to humans. I know it fascinates me.

I got hooked on espresso when I visited Italy at 18, but these days I prefer a 'flat white.' It's like a small latte with less milk - they're popular in Australia.

I once sang 'Summer Nights,' from 'Grease,' at a bar in Melbourne with John Travolta, who's a good friend of mine. He looked cool singing the part of Danny - sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigar - while I got stuck playing Sandy.

I remember at one point being in fellowship, and everyone used to wear the fish symbol; it said you were a Christian. So I asked my father, 'Dad, why don't you wear that at work?' And he said, 'Your religion should be in your actions.' He set a great, great example.

I would love to have a robot at home.

Comic book fans have loved Wolverine, and all the 'X-Men' characters, for more than the action. I think that's what set it apart from many of the other comic books. In the case of Wolverine, when he appeared, he was a revolution really. He was the first anti-hero.

I'm an actor who believes we all have triggers to any stage of emotion. It's not always easy to find but it's still there.

I know I'm not known as method. By nature I'm not a brooder. What I continue to use is a mixture of the English school, which is traditionally outside-in, and the more American way of working from the inside out.

My gosh, I love food. If I wasn't an actor, I could be a completely different body shape right now.

I'm doing a new musical on Broadway, which opens in October called 'The Boy from Oz,' where I play Peter Allen. For those of you who don't know, he became first famous in America for marrying Liza Minelli.

When I come home, my daughter will run to the door and give me a big hug, and everything that's happened that day just melts away.

And I think that, of course, there is some dysfunction of needing to be liked or noticed or to feel part of things, something going on there for most actors. For some there's not and I think they really struggle with it.

Salvatore Ferragamo have done some nice handmade suits for me.

If I could only do one exercise, it would be dead lifting. For cardio, I dance, I ride my bike, I run and I have kids. There is a... lot of cardio just from being a parent.

I like to dress up in a tailored suit from time to time, and there's a tailor I go to in Naples who's fantastic. But if I told anyone his name, I'd have to kill them.

My parents were drawn to the idea that there was space and opportunity in Australia. For the meagre sum of £10, you could sail your entire family out to Australia, so that's what my father chose to do.

If I'm a lush at anything, it's food and drink. I'm not materialistic in any way, but I value food.

If I go to a party I don't feel like I have to be in the centre. But I do find myself quite often being placed in that position. Even when I was younger at school, I would be asked to make a speech. I don't remember putting up my hand and all that often but I'd just find myself there.

Your wife is always right. Very simple. I think I'm going to get it tattooed on my forehead.

It's absolutely physically demanding to play the role of Wolverine. There's a lot of action, and I try to do as much of it as I can because it's better for the audience.

Sometimes you have to go places with characters and emotions within yourself you don't want to do, but you have a duty to the story and as a storyteller to do it.

It's always interesting - how do you actually convey thought through song? We're used to the convention on stage. In film, we used to be used to it, and now sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You need to be fresh and really look at the material.

As an actor, you have many tools - your body, your voice, your emotions, mentally. In film, you have your eyes because they communicate your thought process. In fact, generally in film, what you don't say is more important than what you say. That's not so much the case for stage.

My dad's main client was the World Bank, and he spent most of his time traveling to Third World countries. His particular interest lay in the eradication of poverty through development and business.

I'm not a loner at all.

My father is very Jean Valjean. He's what I would call a great example of a religious person. He is a deeply thoughtful man whose religion is in his deeds way more than anything else. It's not talked about that much.

I'm lucky to have worked in theater all over the world, but there's something magical about Broadway. The audiences are smart, they're educated. They go in ready and they're up for it, they're up for the party. It's a whole different atmosphere.

My friends say, 'Man you're going to have kids sleeping on pillowcases with your face on it! You're going to be on toothbrushes and magnets and stuff.' I guess now that I'm a dad, I'm thrilled about that.

I'm quite a competitive person, so I do quite like to win.

The moment your kid's born you realize no one knows anything. No one goes to classes. You just have a kid. You can read all the books you like, but unfortunately none of our kids have read the books so they don't care. You're basically making it up as you go along.

When lifting, I'm always with a trainer because the thing that makes a difference is that last 20% in your training, and he very scientifically looks after my food as well, because when I'm going for a 'shirt off' shot, everything changes the month before, and I'm timed down to the day.

I had a bad back for a couple of years. I had to do a lot of physiotherapy for it. What I couldn't understand at the time was why the therapists had me doing a lot of stomach work.

Anyone who thinks they're indispensible is fooling themselves.

I have two children and it's amazing how in tune they are with nature, with light, with smells, with time.

To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car. The only reason I wanted to make money as an actor was because I'm passionate about food!

I've dreamt of being in a movie musical for a long time. For some reason I never even thought 'Les Mis' would be possible.

My kids are not that interested in my movie career, by the way. My son, in particular, never talks about it. He just wants me as his dad.

When you dance, your body just wants to find its natural weight. I'm naturally a lot more Tommy Tune than I am Wolverine.

When you're playing an icon like Wolverine, it's sometimes better to be someone that nobody knows because they don't know what to expect. I don't mind a little bit of anonymity; it helps on the subway.

I've always felt embraced by the Broadway community even before I felt like I earned it.

My mum and I are, in many ways, quite similar. We're both creative, gregarious, and energetic.

It dawned on me that acting was what I wanted to do with my life. Nothing had ever touched my heart like acting did.

To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions.

We feel that there are so many kids who need adopting. We thought we'd do it after having a couple of our own, but we just changed our mind.

Americans are the most generous country on the planet. I've worked in Europe, I've worked in Australia. There is no where else where you get absolutely no attitude for being a foreigner. If you do your job well, they embrace you.

Acting is something I love. It's a great craft that I have a lot of respect for. But I don't think it's any greater challenge than teaching 8-year-olds or any other career. In my life, I try not to make it more important than it is and I just hope that rubs off on the people around me.

One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun - especially for a kid who was a massive sports fan.

I have two kids, career and I travel, and I don't think my life is any different than most couples. The most valuable commodity now for many people is time and how to parcel that out.

I had spent some time in the outback, but to meet Aboriginals and work with them was wonderful. It gave me a great appreciation of how tough life is and about the indomitable spirit that the Aboriginal people have always possessed.

I'm doing 'Les Miserables,' the movie. I've done a lot of musicals and a lot of movies, and I know there are not a lot of people in Hollywood who have been down those two paths so I've been like, 'Come on, let's do a movie/musical.'

I lived with a coffee farmer called Dukale on a trip I made with World Vision to Ethiopia, and realised there's no good reason for the disparity in opportunity around the world.

I'm quite an independent person, and I had to be. As a boy and growing into a young man I had to look out for myself. And now I'm very family-oriented. It's a big priority in my life.

One thing I do personally started 20 years ago. I started meditating, and I know twice a day I can kind of let everything drop. It's just about being quiet, like drawing back the day, and it allows me to have energy.

My agent said to me five years ago, 'Hugh, I can see one day you... if I had to plan a goal for you, it's for you to have the kind of career that Sinatra had.'

To get down to the quick of it, respect motivates me - not success.

I don't think many actors are the best judge of careers. I think generally we have good instincts about what we can do in terms of acting. And often they become directors, which I don't want to be.

I like the Rolling Stones for karaoke. 'Sympathy For The Devil' is a great one.

The word philosophy sounds high-minded, but it simply means the love of wisdom. If you love something, you don't just read about it; you hug it, you mess with it, you play with it, you argue with it.

That's all about the natural order of things, the idea of nature protecting children but also children protecting nature.

I have a terrific marriage, but unlike a lot of relationships where they ebb and flow, no matter what happens you fall deeper and deeper in love every day. It's kind of the best thing that can happen to you. It's thrilling.

The activity of being a husband, a father - those are roles, too, but underneath them is the spiritual center that connects us all, and that's what's most important.

Becoming a father, I think it inevitably changes your perspective of life. I don't get nearly enough sleep. And the simplest things in life are completely satisfying. I find you don't have to do as much, like you don't go on as many outings.

The first show I ever did, singing and dancing, was 'Beauty and the Beast.' I was playing Gaston. Gaston has red tights, knee high boots, and it's very physical. I had headaches every day for two months.

My father is a real idealist, and he's all about learning. If I asked for a pair of Nikes growing up, it was just a resounding 'No.' But if I asked for a saxophone, one would appear and next day and I'd be signed up for lessons. So anything to do with education or learning, my father would spare no expense.

To make films like 'X-Men' work commercially - and also have some class - is one of the hardest things there is to do. I want to be seen to be able to cross lots of genres and still be 'fair dinkum,' as we say in Australia, which means genuine and true and, well, unique.

Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It's like the ultimate rest. It's better than the best sleep you've ever had. It's a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh.

Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '£10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.

But anyone who's done a musical knows; whether you're dancing or not, physically it's the most difficult thing you can do.

Breakfast is my specialty. I admit it's the easiest meal to cook, but I make everything with a twist, like lemon ricotta pancakes or bacon that's baked instead of fried.

Australians are coffee snobs. An influx of Italian immigrants after World War II ensured that - we probably had the word 'cappuccino' about 20 years before America. Cafe culture is really big for Aussies. We like to work hard, but we take our leisure time seriously.

For Sunday breakfast, I make orange and ricotta pancakes, crepes and eggs. You know men, we usually go for breakfast because it's the easiest thing to cook and then we try to make it seem fancy.

With age, you see people fail more. You see yourself fail more. How do you keep that fearlessness of a kid? You keep going. Luckily, I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself.

I find that kid actors are great reminders of the simplicity of acting. As you get older, you can sometimes complicate things a little more. You can become too aware of, 'Okay, this is the scene emotionally. This is where we need to be. We've got the climax coming up.' You can start to analyze it too much.

I was probably more scared of my high school exams than I was of the Oscars. At the time you think it's everything and if you don't do well, your life's over. Opportunities are gone. So the more you do it, the less the fear is present.

I'm not a kid. You don't get in this business for anonymity. It's not like I have posters of myself on the wall, but at the same time, I'm kind of ready for a little bit of it, but I worry for my little one, and my family - their privacy. That's what I'm more protective of.

There is anxiety, but it comes after you've finished filming because it's out of your hands; people are editing it, they're cutting it, marketing it. And it's... part your career sort of rides on that. But when you're actually filming it's a team thing and it really feels good there for me.

The last 10 years I have had to bulk up for roles and I'm naturally skinny, so I have eaten and killed so many chickens! I wouldn't even want to count. I need to balance that out.

The secret to modern life is finding the measure in time management. I have two kids, career and I travel, and I don't think my life is any different than most couples. The most valuable commodity now for many people is time and how to parcel that out.

I just find the evangelical church too, well, restrictive. But the School of Practical Philosophy is nonconfrontational. We believe there are many forms of Scripture. What is true is true and will never change, whether it's in the Bible or in Shakespeare. It's about oneness.

I feel so lucky to have both a son and a daughter, because there's a different relationship with each of them.

I can look back on my life, where there have been moments where things might have gone the other way. Everything is like stepping stones, and I've seen people I admire falter. We're all vulnerable.

Happy Birthday Scott Bakula!

When I used to do tours, I`d be anxious and nervous on the plane returning to New York. I now realize the reaction was because I was coming back unemployed. Actors are constantly being put to the test.

It's a joyful, humbling feeling to be in different places around the planet and people have seen shows that I'm proud of being a part of, that do have things to say about the human condition, the planet, and who we are and where we've come from, that will sustain. Those ideas are universal and they work in any language.

Lots of people still live with fears about anything. It can be lots of different things. One of the hardest things to do is to be present and open and clear about who you are and what you stand for. We all have issues with that.

I try to get on stage whenever I can. I'm always trying to be involved in the theater, doing something on stage, whenever I have downtime. I'm always looking for it.

It's always great to be involved in something that's not in an in-your-face fashion, but has a message that goes out guised as entertainment.

In the fantasy, sci-fi world, the fans are so discerning and they're so tough and they're so intelligent, and they're so critical.

Being an actor opened doors for me to explore my emotions as different people and characters, and expand my own inner soul.

When you get into any kind of period work, or any kind of prosthetic work, or anything that alters what your 8×10 looks like, it's the joy of escaping and becoming somebody else. And it is definitely freeing.

I never intended to be on television or in a movie. The theater was all I ever dreamed about, once I decided to try to make it as a business profession. All this other stuff has just been icing.

Ive always had an affinity for lawyers. My dad is a lawyer. Hes retired now. My brother is a lawyer.

The longer you are in acting business, the more you cherish the times when you're working with people that do great work, and can figure out how to enjoy themselves while they're doing the great work.

I'm constantly involved in theater, looking at theater, trying to do work in theater, support theater. And that's kind of my creative passion.

By the end of that movie, I was in about three hours of makeup, by the time they did the tattoo and the burn and the cut and the blood and the dirt and the contact lenses. You know, it just went on and on. And I had to get there that much earlier as it went on to get ready for that day's work... Clive Barker is just genius, and he's incredibly gifted in so many different ways. He can write and direct and paint and do all these different things, and he can do them all extremely well. I was in awe just being around him. He was and is a sweetheart of a guy. But it was a very difficult shoot. Very, very difficult, and very challenging. But great performances from a bunch of people, and... that was another one that we kind of thought was going to become a series of movies, but it never happened. There was a second film script that came out, and we were talking about it, they were trying to decide who was going to direct it, and there were all kinds of things that were close to going, but then there were other things that happened with the studio, et cetera, and it never came to fruition. But it was a great experience, and I just love Clive Barker.

I went into show business because I love to work with people, and what I enjoy most about acting is rehearsing and getting to know people and their talents, forming relationships. Working in this business, barriers drop and you get into people real quickly.

A lot of people don't know that I'm a singer - that's my thing, really.

It was right around when I did that show that I got my first indication of what life was in Hollywood. I was doing a play out here, a musical called Nite Club Confidential, and it was this great show. So I'd go on auditions, and they'd say, "Oh, Scott, it's so nice to meet you!" and I'd say, "Oh, thanks!" And they'd go, "So, Nite Club Confidential!" And I'd be, like, "Oh, did you see it?" "Oh, no, no, we didn't see it. But we heard it was great!" And I realized, "Okay, I'm not in New York anymore, and this is a different world." Either they'd heard that it was great or they'd read that it was great, and that's why they were seeing me. Sylvie Drake wrote a great review, and all of a sudden I'm in all of these meetings, and I got the job on Designing Women. I just remember thinking, "Okay, so your work doesn't actually have to be seen." In New York, everybody goes to the theater, they see you, and they say, "Oh, I saw you, and you were unbelievable." Here, they just have to have heard you were good.

I find that it's easier to do parts that are wrapped up in different hair and wardrobe and eras, and different period behavior, than it is to play closer to the present.

Well, I'm... first and foremost I'm a theater guy and everything that I know comes from the theater.

I am very much against weapons in space. And I wish we could be spearheading that program to come to some kind of international agreement so that doesn't happen. That is my only - fear - in further space exploration like always, we hope it doesn't get abused.

In many respects, I think a lot of businessmen have become highly insensitive to the world, the environment, to everything around them. What are they doing with the millions and millions of dollars they're making? Why don't they give anything back? That, to me, is the height of insensitivity.

The biggest challenge for everybody to realize out there is that we're in a very complicated business world and that were all under one umbrella and it's very challenging for everybody to figure out where the priorities lie and where the loyalties lie.

And I've always felt comfortable certainly in a courtroom because you're just performing. And there was a time in my life when I thought when I grew up I'd be a trial lawyer myself.

On the whole, show business is a hard business in which to be married.

You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.

I don't think that a company should own a studio and the network, and program for their own network. It hurts the creativity - it is not a level playing field.

I wanted to be an actor because it gave me the opportunity to express myself in ways I wasn't comfortable expressing myself, as a kid growing up in St. Louis.

The reality of our business is that for every actor who's rolled up his tent and given up and gone home, the next day you hear about some shoe salesman at Macy's who had this audition and now he's Harrison Ford. There's always that carrot out there in our business.

I like fantasy. I've always been the kind of kid who likes to dream about other things I could be and exotic situations I could be in.

Running for me has always been a great place to get away. It's a great stress reliever for me. It's great if I need to be working on something in my mind, whether it's things I need to be memorizing or thinking about, or I have some presentation coming up.

The great thing about show business is that there's no mandatory retirement age.

I've done great theatre, great films and had a lot of opportunities in television. I also love to sing, and I've been able to do that once or twice in the television shows.

Ideally, people find mates with whom they can express both their masculine and feminine sides.

Sunday night was such a big night for television when I was growing up - you know, The Wonderful World of Disney.

I've always been a big fan of time travel, and I'm very into the notion that some day we'll be able to do it. Beam me up!

The reason why most of actors got into acting was so that we could become other people and have fun with being somebody else.

I was a huge fan of the original 'Star Trek,' and I'd never even dreamed that I would someday be captain of a starship.

I havent really thought about where to scatter my ashes when the time comes, but I doubt that it would be in space.

The guy that picked me up at the airport in 1985 when I was out in L.A. for my first audition was selling a script. I was a nobody coming off a plane to read for a new show.

I am very much against weapons in space.