Lake Bell

“I love fashion. I always have. When I was a kid, I was in almost full-on costumes when I went to school, and I've retained a bit of that in my adulthood.”

“I think part of what I love about being an actor is getting to take on different worlds and investigate different genres and travel to different lands.”

“My mother is a beautiful writer. Writing letters back and forth with her was an athletic endeavor, and it became something I really looked forward to.”

“The only thing I liked about Christmas as a kid was the gifts; otherwise, it just seemed like a stressful time.”

“I don't really enjoy working in TV, to be completely honest. Even though it's incredibly lucrative, I'm just terrified of not being satiated in a myriad of different ways.”

“Before you have kids, you're like, 'I hope I don't die on this plane,' or, 'I hope I don't die crossing the street.' It's all me, me, me. 'What do I want to eat? What do I want to do?' But when you have a baby, and you would just happily stand in front of a bus to save her, it's a ferocious commitment to protecting your charge.”

“I consider myself a good layman's cook. Ninety percent of the time, I'm successful with what I set out to make, and I can improvise. Yes, I own a mandoline. Yes, we have a Vitamix.”

“The two things that hit you when you meet someone are, first, how they're visually put together and then, what they tell you with the tone of their voice - whether or not they're to be taken seriously.”

“I think the key to a great romcom is to not fight against the genre. The trend more recently has been to apologise or be snarky, so it's an anti-romcom. Just lean in and embrace the fact it's a love story, and it's funny, and it's light. It can still be uber-smart and deal with zeitgeist issues.”

“I feel that being an actor is a front-row seat into seeing how everybody else makes their movies. Basically, being in the trenches for ten years is like a college-level course in filmmaking if not more. It feels like every director I work with and every set that I visit as an actor, I see someone else's definition of filmmaking.”

“I think the greatest privilege you have as an artist is time to nurture what you want to make; that's super luxurious. For you to rush into something, that doesn't feel fun to me. I'm living life in order to be able to write about it.”

“I was a commercial girl. In drama school, I was a mediocre model occasionally to pick up some extra cash, and because clearly I'm not six feet tall, and I had baby weight, I would mainly just would do promotional stuff.”

“I love Dr. Hauschka's blue mascara. It's not so blue that it's like, 'What's wrong with you?' It's more like a secret that you're wearing it.”

“When I was pregnant, I was like, 'I'm pregnant, so I'm allowed to eat everything: bagels with cream cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I can have pizza for dessert.'”

“I'll be totally honest in that I feel tremendously lucky that I am offered incredible jobs all the time to direct, but the problem that I have just personally is that there are only so many years in my life to dedicate to certain projects.”

“Actually, in my own life I think I probably feign neuroses to be more interesting than I am.”

“'In A World...' changed my life a thousand per cent. I feel thankful that something I believed in so much - I love dialect, so I dedicated five years of my life to making a film about it - yielded such rewards. It led to 'Man Up,' as well as 'No Escape,' which comes out later this year... two movies where I am the female lead.”

“I'm vegan on home base, but when I travel to other countries, I throw it all into the garbage.”

“I have vitamins I intend to take to be a better person. I even have a pillbox for them to remind myself to be healthier. But will I take them? Definitely not.”

“I certainly felt like my life had been enriched and had also changed forever when I took 'In A World...' to Sundance.”