Quote

As an actor, you usually live your life with faith.

A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can.

I think it's vital to have something outside your acting to keep you rooted in the real world, and help you fill the vacuum. If you have nothing else, it can be unhealthy. For me being a Christian has been invaluable: it simply means acting isn't the centre of my life.

For me, being an actress is not just a profession but a profession of faith.

At Cornell, my acting teacher said you cannot be religious and be an artist. I sort of got it, because faith is a comfort and art comes from a lot of places, in a lot of people, from the dark chasm.

My capacity as a monk was to passionately believe utter nonsense, and when you're an actor you have to do the same thing. Also, Christianity used to have a lot to do with self-loathing and an acceptance of criticism and things like that which is terribly important for actors.

I think it's difficult to be a Christian anywhere, at least to be a committed Christian - I think that demands a lot from a person no matter their field of work, and certainly working in Hollywood is no exception.

I recognize that every role I play, I'm not going to play someone that has a ministry or that is a Christian, and I don't think that's what God has called me to do. The gift and talent that He's given me as an actor, director, producer is to entertain, sometimes to inform, most times to inspire.

My faith has cost me a lot of money. Because I do creative roles, and I guess someone could think of me as, I could play bawdy, I could play rough around the edges. And so they think, 'Oh, she'll do this. It'll be so funny.' And I'm like, 'I'm not doing that.'

I've been really lucky thus far with acting, in that I can do things I believe in and feel good about, and feel good about myself. If for some reason one day that ends, I won't do it anymore. If I feel like I have to compromise myself to continue to be in this industry, I don't want to do that.