Hope Davis

Hope: (About the future) I've kind of arrived at the place where I want to be, and I'd love to stay here for a while. I love working on independent films, and I love doing theater. I'm pretty damned content.

Hope: I'm not as nervous as I used to be. The first time I went onstage, I was just terrified. I had to be slapped.

Hope: Happy, sexy girl. How come I don't get to play those parts more often?

Hope: I love acting. It's my whole life. I actually can't think of anything in the world I would rather do. This is my dream. And I love the nomadic existence. I'm not good at staying in one place for a long time and doing the same thing day after day.

Hope: (on being a mother and playing the part of a parent who lost a child) I'm sure that made it very easy for me to connect to the character -- just the fact that I have kids.

Hope: (on "About Schmidt") How you see this movie and what it will mean to you will depend on how old you are. I think the film is easy to watch because it's so funny and so beautiful.

Hope: Everyone I know is weary. Everyone I know in New York is exhausted all the time. They're lives are chaotic.

Hope: (on doing a sex scene with Michael Vartan) You're so humiliated that you go deaf and blind when the camera starts rolling, and then you wipe it all out of your mind afterwards. But you know what? I kind of enjoyed myself, in a very actorly sort of way.

Hope: (on being a sucker for a good tear-jerker) There's nothing I love more than a good cry.

Hope: I would be afraid to go on a blind date. Just calling up strangers and sitting with them? Really!

Hope: (on the first time she was on set with Jack Nicholson) I had butterflies! I was really nervous... But then Jack walked onto the set and all my fears evaporated. He just knows how to disarm people in that way.

Hope: (on a gift from her husband) It's like my little secret thing, and I snack and I read my book with this little light. It's this moment of total serenity and peacefulness. It was like exactly what I wanted, my Itty Bitty Book Light.