I think the height of ridiculousness was when I was playing Elizabeth in 'The Golden Age' while preparing to start shooting 'I'm Not There.' I literally finished filming Elizabethan grandeur on Friday, flew to Montreal, and started being Bob Dylan on Monday.
I never feel particularly comfortable holding a gun, but when you're playing somebody who lived in the frontier southwest, guns are a part of their life. Anyone who lives on land has a gun.
Playing the lead in a film where you shoot for three months away from home is not an easy thing for me when my children are in school and my husband is running a theatre company.
Men are boys for such a long time and really don't start getting the great roles until they're in their mid-thirties. But then they've got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it's all about playing younger and younger and younger.
I always dressed as a man when I was at school. I loved wearing a tie and a shirt, and I was always wearing suits. Annie Lennox was my hero. I was always playing men in high school.
I remember thinking, when I was playing Hedda Gabler, that several sequences of the play were utterly absurd.