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The odd thing is if you asked me to do the accent now I would find it very difficult unless I was also playing that part, because I associate it so much with entering into the role and stepping into someone else's shoes.

I've seen plays that are, objectively, total messes that move me in ways that their tidier brethren do not. That's the romantic mystery of great theater. Translating this ineffability into printable prose is a challenge that can never be fully met.

Doing an accent removes you from yourself and reminds you, every instant, that you're playing a part.

When I first started, as long as you were a bit brown, you could play any kind of ethnic anything. Now it's much more localised and specific. I feel like a wise old woman looking back on the evolution of how much more sophisticated audiences are.

I love playing characters with different accents. It's a lot of fun.

I play characters, and I try to play them in a manner that's appropriate to the script. Physical movement and vitality of language is part of character.

It's funny because I'm so used to acting in English that any time I have these moments where I have to speak Russian, it definitely takes a different part of my brain to pull it off, but it's always nice and fun.

I used to play a lot of foreign women in my youth because I was prettier then. I would go for interviews, and directors would look at these sultry, exotic looks, hear this clipped accent and think the two don't go together. So they would give me a foreign accent.

It's much more fun to play something you're nothing like than what you are... It's much easier to hide yourself in a character.