I think I knew acting was what I wanted to do. But I was from this small town and there was no place for an adult to recognize it. I think the cheerleading thing was a way of performing. There was the boy element, but more important was the performance element. Once I got to high school and auditioned for a play and got in, I thought this was really what I was looking for. Once that had got cleared up, from 13 on, that was it.

I think there`s been a tendency to place me in what has been characterized as the "moral center" of the film. In films like The Ice Storm (1997), The Crucible (1996) and Nixon (1995), that`s the sort of the persona that emerged.

How do we escape who we are? I think going to college, I felt freer. I loved the clean slate. I wasn`t known as the sort of nerdy, studious girl. I met gay people for the first time in my life. I needed that expansion from a very conservative little town.

I was the good girl. The straight A student, on the honor roll, part of the choir . . . I played the cello badly. I did plays.

I`m hard to pin down. I tend to look different in films. I get recognized sometimes. But I just live my life. I get on the bus, I get on the subway, it`s not a problem. I think of myself more as a character actor than that ingénue leading lady, who started out something like Michelle Pfeiffer or Jessica Lange. I`m a bit quirkier than that.

er 50% of Americans don`t agree with the administration [of President `George W. Bush`]; that`s a lot of people. But they don`t get the press. I know myself and my friends in New York were devastated after the last election [2004]. We could hardly stand up it was so devastating. And those are the people that I`m around a fair amount.

I was a very good girl for a long time, that`s what really drew me to acting. The stage was the perfect place to be outrageous, to be sad, to be angry, to be all these different things.

To tell you the truth, if Oliver Stone had wanted Pat Nixon to wear a G-string and swing from a chandelier, I would have played it that way.

I was very shy, but was desperate to meet boys. So my sister told me to be a cheerleader. I didn`t make cheerleading squad, so I thought, "Why not try out for a play?" As soon as I did I found out I absolutely loved it. I could cry and scream and laugh, but in a controlled environment.