- I don't do method acting. If I play a farmer I'm not gonna spend 3 weeks on a chicken farm. That's a bit too much for me. For Minoes (in which she played a cat in a woman's body) I didn't spend 3 weeks in a cat pound.
- In The Netherlands you know who the good and the bad are if I have to say it so black and white. You can orientate yourself better in your own country. Here everything is overwhelming. It is very difficult to know who to trust here.
- To me, that's not the most difficult thing. To transform. I don't really see it happen. I don't have the feeling I am transforming, really. I don't believe you can get into somebody's character but more that somebody comes in you. You just use yourself. In everything I play, I feel like it is me. I just say different things on different times and look different.
- If you are not in America fast enough, it must have failed. When there is another thing like, maybe I don't want to go to America. I mean, it's not SO great there anyway...
- On what foreign press wants to know: I think they're all waiting for a crazy story about Paul (Verhoeven), that he exploded once or something, but I keep telling them he's a sweet man so I keep letting them down. And what it's like to be naked on a set. They all think that's very exciting. I just answer that in Holland, it's weird not to be naked on a set so we're all used to it.
- [About her scenes being cut from Body of Lies (2008)] It sounds much more pitiful than it is. To be honest, I was wondering several times on set what my character was actually adding to the story.
- There is a saying that doesn't translate well, but it goes something like 'act normal because you are crazy enough'.
- I do this acing thing mostly for myself. I like to make a connection and communicate with the audience to make myself feel less lonely.
- [on the 'Game of Thrones' genre] It has made me more open to fantasy. It's so much richer than I thought it would be. You can easily write it off as Disney for grownups, but it's great that this comes from someone's brain, and tickles your imagination. I can see now why the geeks have been geeky about it.
- [on her career, 2014] I'm not as keen on playing in the American big leagues. There's so much more to my life than being in a big American movie. I'm a singer and working on my second album. I write and produce. There is so much more that satisfies me. I will never become an American movie star. I'm a European actress that is lucky to be in a show like ['Game of Thrones'].
- [on the chance that her character in 'Game of Thrones' might die] It's sad if you get killed off, but it's also the fun part. It's like roulette. It's easier for me to say this because I have magical powers, which make it harder for the writers to kill me off. But I have a feeling that I won't get away with anything.
- [on portraying Melisandre in 'Game of Thrones'] Playing evil is just not interesting. I don't think anyone who does evil stuff thinks they're doing evil stuff. That's the scary part. The people who do things we despise or don't understand - they think they're doing a good thing, which is so scary. I think that is the only way for me to play her, because otherwise I'm fighting with her.
- [2009] I smoked two packets of cigarettes a day for 15 years, until two years ago when I quit. I don't drink water or go to the gym, and I eat sweets. But for the first time I'm now thinking about this because I'm over 30 and I feel things are loosening up. [she pulls a jokey face]
- [2009] I've just done a year of theatre in Holland, which I love, and I wouldn't like to move to Hollywood permanently. I wouldn't give up my life and my friends and family in Holland. I'm ambitious, but not that ambitious - for me, there's more to life than work. Luckily, no one in Hollywood has told me that I'm too fat or too European. I intend to stay anti-Botox. It scares me, the fashion for it. I have even started wearing bras that don't lift, because it seemed that everybody had to wear push-up bras. I want to be more natural, I'm sick of all these big boobs.
- [onscreen nudity] I feel very strongly about the nudity. I feel very strongly about how you can show machine guns, and you can show horrible things, but you see a nipple and it's, 'Oh my God! A nipple has been displayed!It’s so strange. Especially as a Dutch person, we’re so used to that. And we’re not like a very sexual people, per se. It’s just that we deal with that another way.
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