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As an actor, I think it's really important to be as anonymous as possible. It's your job to convince people that you are somebody else, and so any recognition I'd get away from the screen - well, it's not something I actively seek. To be honest with you, I'm surprised anybody does.

In my acting, I have tried to do this - to present to audiences a living creature in whom they can recognise themselves or someone they know.

Every now and then, people will recognize me at restaurants or Universal Studios or something. I'll always take a picture with them if they want. I mean, that's what telling stories and acting for a living are for - for the people.

When I was on Broadway, people would really just recognize me around the theater. When you're showing up on commercials and posters, the scope of people recognizing you gets a little wider.

I know so many acting careers that are deliberately kickstarted by a publicist placing a bit of rubbish in a newspaper. And I don't want that. If someone recognises me, I want it to be because they've seen me in something, not because they have seen me at something.

I always want the audience to identify with my character in some way. I mean, sometimes you'll get characters that aren't very identifiable. Sometimes you can't relate to your character at all. I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment.

I think, as an actress, whether you want to or not, whether you're ready for it or not, people are going to look at what you're doing, and they are going to look up to you, and it's not even really about you; it's who you portray on the screen.

Very often there's this misapprehension about actors being people that need to display themselves, to reveal themselves in public.

Actors use who they are to be someone else, but I would hate to ever think I'm playing myself. It's imagining being someone else that is the key motivating thing for me. So when people want to know about me, it makes me a bit unnerved.

I don't try to hide who I am when I appear in public places, act, or attend interviews. If I do, it makes the gap even wider. I like it best when someone says I'm the same on television, on camera, or off camera. This makes it easier for me.