My dad is 20 years older than my mom. Growing up, I felt like he knew everything. I felt like, for every question I had, he had an answer.

It's just so funny that when I was growing up, I was very much of an Australian. I just thought it was funny that there was this war, like, 'No, she's ours, she's practically a Miss Australia.' But I am a Miss Philippines.

I just feel like a Filipina, a Filipino woman, and it just so happens that when I was growing up, I was very much an Australian, and I think you can be both.

I am very open to learning. I am like a sponge: I'd like to soak up in new things, new skills.

When my friends and I would act out movies as kids, we'd play the guys' roles, since they had the most interesting things to do. Decades later, I can hardly believe my sons and daughter are seeing many of the same limited choices in current films.

I loved reading Grimm's fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen, and I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives. Maybe that has something to do with having an incomplete family, being an only child. All I know is I loved to pretend, and all that was in tandem with my wanting to be an actress.

The assumption that people sometimes make is that I have made a cold, calculated decision to put my career ahead of having family, and that's not true.

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.