Quotes

For me, doing Wonderland (2003) wasn't about strategy. The story was compelling, it was written really well, I thought I understood the characters, and I just wanted to be in it. I've never gone wrong whenever I've done that, and I haven't done that a lot of times.

We treat sex so casually and use it for everything but what it is - which is ultimately making another human being with thoughts and feelings and rights who will grow up to be an adult.

There are some issues I'm more conservative on. As a parent, I'm concerned that there are so many young, young, young kids - like 12 years old - that are starting to have sex.

[April 2006] I think, on network television, I'm still Phoebe to people and it would be hard to convince them otherwise in the bright lights of a sitcom.

[on Friends (1994)] It was the best experience, an unusually good one in television. We all got along. The producers were great. It was wonderful being involved. I was extraordinarily lucky.

I started watching reality shows and being horrified at people signing up to be humiliated in front of the entire country. I saw one show, The Amazing Race (2001), in which people were eating spicy soup and vomiting and crying. Why would you do that? Also, I was fascinated by these actors and actresses who would sign up to be followed around by cameras in their life. You become a celebrity, not because of your work or what you do, but because you have no privacy. I've been careful to keep my life separate because it's important to me to have privacy and for my life not to be a marketing device for a movie or a TV show. It's worth more than that. I'm worth more than that.

[on becoming famous] To me, it was like being on a roller coaster and making that climb. I spend a lot of time bracing myself for the drop.

[on working with Courteney Cox on Friends (1994)] There's a code with actors. Actors don't give each other notes under any circumstances. She was giving us permission to give her notes, and we all agreed that that would be great. Why not? She was the one who set that tone and made it a real group. And I thought that was a real turning point.

Before you are famous you think, "Oh, if you're famous, you're loved and adored." Then, when you really experience that attention and everyone cares what you're doing and wants pictures of you, it doesn't feel like a warm hug. It really feels like an assault.

[about the Friends actresses having to lose weight for the show] Unfortunately, for a woman, if you're underweight, you look good, and that's all I ever got. And when I was too thin, I was sick all the time, a cold, sinus infection, some kind of flu, I was always sick.

[giving her condolence to Matthew Perry]: Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said that my muscles ached and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY. Thank you for your open heart in a six-way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of 'talking.' Thank you for showing up at work when you weren't well and then being completely brilliant. Thank you for the best 10 years a person gets to have.