Growing up, there was a lot of pressure for women to be good-looking, but my mum was very strict, and she didn't allow me to wear make-up. Looking back, it was good for me. It slowed me down from becoming an adult too quickly.

I didn't really know many girls, growing up, because there weren't many other people living around where I lived.

Not everybody wanted a female to be the front face of a big band, you know... You had to be three times better than a man had to be.

I lived in buses. I didn't really have anything else. I didn't feel like a female, and I ended up really kind of isolated. Everybody thinks you're so happy and so wealthy and such a big star, but you're really kind of lonely and don't know how to stop it.

I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation.

In 'D.A.R.Y.L.' there was a part where I had to freeze to death, and they didn't even use it. It can get kind of frustrating. But I don't regret that I decided to become an actor. Besides, if I don't like it at any time, I can stop.

Talk about a woman of a certain age - Pearl Buck was a great prototype of continuing to work. She was in the hospital dying of cancer, and in the next room was her secretary, typing out her next book.

I've realised darkness and light are inter-dependent, just as death is an enhancer of life.