Quotes
On getting her teeth broken at a 1995 anti-Ontario government rally"There were single mothers on welfare, with, like, their heads gashed in and nine stiches and they're talking about this little 16-year-old with a couple of broken-teeth. It then becomes this big soby story that everyone can glom onto, when the real issue is that there's, like, poor people and homeless people there getting their heads kicked in." (Halifax Herald, July 1999)
On her reaction to the first Gulf War at 11
"When I was 11, I was at an event in Washington during the Gulf War and there were senators sitting at the same table. I was wearing a peace symbol and I started talking about the war and how I thought it was atrocious and disgusting. And later I received a phone call from a Disney executive wanting to know if I was a communist! I was 11! I didn't hear from them for a while after that, though I had been hearing a lot from previously." (Interview, September 1999)
On which character that she has played does she most closely identify with
"I'd say Nicole, from The Sweet Hereafter. There's a moment in her life when the world is no longer a two-dimensional place, and suddenly everyone comes alive to her and she sees very clearly all that's both good and bad about them. As opposed to the world that she inhabited in her childhood, which was very one-note - happy and content. Things suddenly get intense and terrifying, and she feels like she's walking through a minefield. I think there was probably a moment in my life when things came alive to me in that way. In a really awful and really great way." (Interview, September 1999)
On if winning an Academy Award is any sort of goal for her
God, I can't imagine even being nominated, ever. It just doesn't seem feasible to me, so I have no idea what I would do. I know I wouldn't get a designer dress and be really charming. [laughs] I find the whole thing absurd. Hopefully what actors are trying to do is look for some kind of truth, right? So to have a competition, like a race, for who found the most truthfulness this year? It's totally nuts. I mean, I think it's great as long as someone doesn't actually believe they gave the best performance." (Interview, September 1999)
On what worries her the most
"Not knowing who I am is my biggest worry - but it's sort of my greatest joy, too. So I think I'll be trying to figure it out my whole life." (Interview, September 1999)
On the roles she likes to play
"I like playing people who have secrets, who have isolated themselves in some way. I do think of loneliness as the thing that I'm constantly running away from - but I don't think I'm the only person who feels that way." (Interview, February 2003)
On filming The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen
"I paid several visits to the hospital and contracted hypothermia after prolonged immersion in a water tank. The whole thing absolutely put me off movies and I decided I'd never leave Canada again." (You, November 2003)
On the film industry
"It's impossible to be in the film industry and not be a complete idiot for portions of your life. But I had a few years of detox and came back down do earth." (You, November 2003)
On Hollywood
"I think you have to keep your distance from mainstream Hollywood in order to be a normal human being. I mean, I work there, and I like being there, but I love having an anonymous life. I think there's definitely such a thing as being too famous." (You, November 2003)
On being a filmmaker
"I direct short films. It’s not this huge ambition of mine. It’s something that I’d like to do both, because I think you learn a lot one from the other." (Romantic Movies, 2003)
On filming Dawn Of The Dead
"I was a huge fan of the original, which is why I did it. It’s a huge departure for me to do something so mainstream and something in a studio, but I think the original is such an amazing allegory for consumerism in the guise of this crazy zombie movie. I think that the allegory is actually stronger in the remake so I’m really excited about it. It was a total departure for me." (Romantic Movies, 2003)
On her career
"If you have the opportunity to do things which have some meaning I don't know why you would choose to do other things. I understand that many people don't have that opportunity but I do right now so I'm happy to hold out for the films which have something to contribute." (kamera.co.uk, 2003)
On being famous
"I’m not designed to be famous. My personality is completely wrong for it." (Canadian Film Encyclopedia)
On her experiences as an actress
"I started acting when I was four. My first experience on a film set was in dead of winter. Now I realise that almost every film I've ever been in is like that. It was the beginning of a long career of incredibly cold, sparse, barren landscapes."
On how is she perceived in Canada
"I think it's a complicated relationship because when I was little I was on that sugary sweet horrible kid's show called Road to Avonlea. So a lot of people watched the show growing up. On the one hand they wanted me to stay that way but then I got political which isn't frowned upon there. Sometimes I think people just want me to shut up.
I get to work with a lot of filmmakers I want but we don't have this culture of building up icons. I am on magazines when I am promoting a film but otherwise I have an anonymous life." (Suicide Girls, 2003)
On what made her leave home at age 14
"It was practical because my dad lived in a little town outside Toronto. I was going to school in Toronto and I wanted to be closer. I was given a lot of independence at an early age." (Suicide Girls, 2003)
On being a political activist
"Well I'm still politically active but more issue oriented. But when I was 16 to 18 that was my whole life until I did The Sweet Hereafter. I was working on stuff surrounding the welfare cuts and the arts cuts in Ontario. Now every year or so I get really involved for a few months but I try to balance my life more because you can get really dogmatic and stupid if that's all you do. You need to be experiencing the world as well as trying to change it." (Suicide Girls, 2003)
"I always think it's a bit of a joke when I get described as an activist. Really, for two or three months of my year I organise stuff, but I'm not as involved as I used to be."
On filming The Sweet Hereafter
"I was so young then, 18. I'm really comfortable in sadness so I don't get depressed doing stuff like that. I actually find it invigorating. It was an amazing experience. Atom is a filmmaker who I really respect and I felt like I had his trust." (Suicide Girls, 2003)
On filming why does she like working in sadness so much
"I'm just comfortable in it. Maybe it's because my first real acting experience was The Sweet Hereafter playing a really damaged character." (Suicide Girls, 2003)
On David Cronenberg
"He's a normal person who you can't imagine making these crazy films. He seems like a banker sometimes." (Suicide Girls, 2003)
On her marriage
"My relationship is the thing I'm proudest of in my life. I had a lot of opportunities to end up in some pretty bad situations, and despite all my faults I had the sense to find someone like him and make the decision to be with him. You spend a lot of time wanting to be with the wrong person and I just feel incredibly lucky because I've succeeding at that one thing. I figured that out." (Famous, March 2004)
On her film Dawn Of The Dead (2004) going up against Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ (2004) head-to-head at the box office
"They've got only one guy who comes back from the dead. We've got millions."
"I have agents and publicists who completely understand my approach to show business and that I don't want to sell something. I don't want to create an image."
"Over the past six or seven years, I've completely avoided period films. I was trapped in a series from age 9-15. I wasn't interested in being an actor at that age, but my contract obligated me. The series was set in 1900, so I had bad associations with being in period dress and I really avoided it until The Claim. I was a fantastic feeling to be in the wardrobe that you've been running from."
"My experience with relationships has been really great, just because I think you can learn a lot from anything you go through. I'm attracted to people who are curious and open and generous and enthousiastic."
"I think it's a good thing for me to live in Toronto. That has been really great because it seems very removed - or it used to before all the production flight to Toronto. I have a family that's crazy and down-to-earth and everything that everyone's family is, so that's been really, really important. I don't think anyone is ever completely grounded, but I'd like to think I have a few elements in my life that I can choose to be at certain moments."
"I find it much more attractive when people are a little overweight as opposed to underweight."
"When I've been shopping for a while, I get this sweaty, flulike feeling and I always come home sick."
"If I am to do certain high-profile movies in the future, I will seek a very low profile."
"I love zombies and I got to run around, shoot guns and not tear my heart out for the first time in my life. It was fantastic," she says. Guns? Isn't she against guns? "Yeah, of course I am," she smiles. "I do believe that if zombies take over the earth, then it's important for us all to be armed. My gun-control belief ends there."
"The films I learned to act in always involved something ambiguous. In the Atom Egoyan films the unspoken is what’s important – the words are mechanisms to talk around what you’re really talking about. And now I feel a struggle sometimes when a piece of dialogue is exactly what it is."
