"That was so fun. I had [all these] big brothers. I'd always dreamed of having a big brother, and suddenly I felt like I had 20."
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"I had an injury to my rib — one rib went under the other. It happens quite regularly to dancers. It wasn’t comfortable, but nothing was broken and it went back to normal a month later. I was [in pain], but normal pain. Dancing is like being an athlete: You are constantly in some sort of pain from muscle soreness or whatever. That was a surprise to me — that dancers and athletes are always in some sort of pain. Part of the skill is hiding it."
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"We had rehearsals for a few weeks before [shooting] where we all went around the table and talked about our experiences related to the story. It was an amazing way to get to know each other and all remind ourselves of what story we were telling together. Throughout the shoot [director Mike Nichols] would have weekly screenings for us every weekend of double features. The most disturbing one I remember was a double feature of Brief Encounter and Irreversible. It would be a lineup like that every weekend."
"[Writer-director] Anthony Minghella was incredible; he was the most poetic, kind person. He was a big influence on me, even though I only got to work on that for 10 days. He had a big influence on how I wanted to be on set, because he would [talk to] the craft services guy and know his kids’ names and have a conversation with him in the middle of the day. You could feel the humanity on every account. The hardship of being a director often makes way for bad behavior; when you see someone like Anthony, and you know you can make beautiful art and be a gentleman or gentlewoman, a kind, giving, generous, listening human being [that changes things]."
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"Wes Anderson and I had met years earlier, and one day he called me up and asked me to come over and do this short with him. But I felt really terrible because [during the shoot] Jason [Schwartzman] was really sick. I felt so bad for him. We had only two days [to shoot], and he was a sweetheart."
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"That was really fun. Norah [Jones] became a dear friend and we had the best time. [Wong Kar Wai] is such a great artist, constantly creating and revising. He showed me that you’re never just filming the script, that you can keep creating the script while you’re going. There was rewriting all the time. He would be writing all night long. It was great — great energy to have that constant quest for new ideas."
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Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala
"That was the luckiest first film to get to have been a part of. Everyone was really kind to me, and it was so magical, getting to be in Paris. I had been there when I was really little — actually, when we moved to the United States we went through Paris. But it was my first substantial trip, three months there with my mom, so that was pretty magical. I remember Jean Reno’s dialect coach and I would play scrabble all the time. It was just so fun."
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