Holly Hunter

Sometimes I go, 'Wow, this is a director I really, really want to work with,' like David Cronenberg. I haunted David Cronenberg for years before, and then he offered me a role.

The rhythm of my career has always been very static, staccato and then silent, and then a lot of work, and then none.

I don't offer advice to actors only because I've seen actors become successful through ways that would never even occur to me or that wouldn't work for me.

I remember that when I was in my 30s, a hot age for an actress, lots of offers were coming in, but nothing was great, and I didn't work for 18 months. It was at a really fruitful age, and I wanted to work. There was nothing coming down the pipeline that I thought was good - and then I got 'The Piano.'

I'm not a media personality, I'm an actress. I want to protect that thing: the suspension of disbelief. The rest of it is just distraction.

I've moved laterally, as opposed to vertically. I was never a superstar. I've always had to move between a couple of years of unemployment, where offers are not provocative enough to take, and seasons where I work nonstop for a year.

I've always had to move between a couple of years of unemployment, where offers are not provocative enough to take, and seasons where I work nonstop for a year. It's always been an erratic rhythm.

I get cold really quickly, but I don't care. I like weather. I never understand why people move someplace so that they can avoid weather.

I moved to New York in 1980, and I met Beth Henley, who's a marvellous playwright and who I have a real personal and professional association with, in 1982. I met her in a stalled elevator - we were the only two people in there - and she's been one of my very dearest friends since.

Giving up something personal to the public, you are surrendering something.

I liked to carry the script into an audition because, for me, it reminded people that this was not the final performance. I'm still a work in progress.

So much progress has been made with topics like mental illness and drug abuse and sexual identity.