Carrie Preston

“I have a recurring role on 'Person of Interest,' which is my husband's show. I play the love of his life. It was really fun to do that.”

“I got my first big paycheck for 'My Best Friend's Wedding.' This was in the days when you actually did get paid to have a supporting role. It just doesn't happen like that anymore, but this was in the '90s. It was the golden age!”

“I'm a character actor and I get lost in these characters, so I think it's only recently that people have begun to connect dots and go, 'Oh, that's the same person that did this, this, this, this and this!' which I take as a compliment. One time somebody called me an illusionist, and that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said.”

“Getting or not getting the job isn't an indicator of your abilities. You're going to get jobs when you think you sucked, and you're not going to get jobs when you think you rocked.”

“I have a great amount of respect for what a manicurist does - now, when I go and get my own nails done at a nail salon, I have a lot of respect for what they're doing. Especially any kind of intricate work that they're doing is... it's a real art form.”

“Everyone thinks they went to high school with me. I take it as a compliment that I look different in every role.”

“Nobody wants to be a bad parent.”

“I played the ingenue, of course, when I was young - but even with those, I tried to make interesting choices and mess them up a little bit - make them layered and complicated and not all stereotypes.”

“If there's one thing that I know how to do, it's talk to actors. From what I have experienced working with so many different directors in so many different things, a lot of them don't really know how to talk to us.”

“A lot of people probably don't realize how difficult it is to stick to that lawyer speak when you're not a lawyer. I see everyone on 'The Good Wife' - everyone, people who have been there since day one - struggling with that language because it is just not how people talk.”

“I tend to play every color in the Southern rainbow, and the challenge is to make each character different so I'm not doing any generic 'Southern acting.'”

“I don't like lying around on the beach. I like to be busy.”

“I use the dictionary all the time when I'm reading or working on scripts.”

“Although I have been doing plays since I was 8 years old, it was only when I started doing Shakespeare at age 19 at the Georgia Shakespeare Festival that I felt like my career started.”

“I do play a lot of Southerners because I grew up in the South, but they're still diverse.”

“I think it's important to have conversation about things instead of shutting things down.”

“I learned from master teachers at the University of Evansville, at Juilliard, at Shakespeare festivals all over the country, eventually landing at Shakespeare in the Park in N.Y.C. That show transferred, so I got to make my Broadway debut doing 'The Tempest' with Patrick Stewart.”

“By the time I was twelve, I had started my own theater company and was doing plays in the backyard and the front yard and all over the neighborhood, so, you know, I was definitely a lifer even back when I was 10.”

“Alan Cumming is such an amazing performer and person.”

“It's OK to cut your hair or color it because it makes you stand out and helps with your brand.”