The truth was I felt ugly growing up. I only really started feeling comfortable in myself when I was 40.

I suffer from low self-esteem. I had horrible self-esteem growing up. You really have to save yourself because the critic within you will eat you up. It's not the outside world - it's your interior life, that critic within you, that you have to silence.

Intelligence is sexy. Don't play dumb, especially young girls. Don't play dumb. And let people see that you are intelligent.

On a Friday night in 1983, I was in a taxi in New York riding home from dinner with friends. A drunk driver ran a red light and hit the cab, and I was thrown toward the glass partition. I tried to duck, but my face hit the glass, and the impact fractured my cheekbone, my eye socket, my collarbone and several ribs.

If Republicans want to be seen as more compassionate, they should continue to stand proudly for the sanctify of life and marriage. And they should do so without apologizing.

If two people cannot live together, both should have the right to opt out of the marriage. In an ideal world, that would be an acceptable solution.

I think that, occasionally, fame and popularity can garner more attention for individuals or films. But as a person who believes in my craft, I like the romantic notion that skill and hard work is more important than notoriety.

There is no doubt that, as a society, we have become blase about the importance of marriage as a stabilising influence and less inclined to prize it as a worthwhile institution.