Rooney Mara

“Daniel Day-Lewis - he's a man, obviously, but I really admire his work.”

“Just because the character listens to an iPod and wears black nail polish, she's goth. That was just a misused word.”

“When I was at college, my nickname was Keds because I wore Keds. I guess it wasn't really a nickname, because nicknames are usually given to you by people who are your friends and who know you. But I didn't know the people who called me Keds. I think that they didn't like me because I didn't want to join a sorority.”

“I love to read. I'm still pen pals with my ninth-grade English teacher, Mr. Shanley. He tells me what books to read.”

“What bothers me about the whole trust-fund thing is that it sort of presumes that everything is handed to you. And if there is one thing about my family that I do identify with, it is that everyone is extremely hardworking.”

“It's really hard coming of age in today's society, where society wants you to make the decision of what you want to do with your life by the time you're 16 years old. Most kids don't know what they want to do. How could they? They haven't lived in the real world yet.”

“I am very slow to warm. I've always been sort of a loner. I didn't play team sports. I am better one-on-one than in big groups.”

“When I do a film, I follow the director.”

“I've always been a very sensitive person, and people tell me that if I'm in a certain mood, and I go into a room, my mood will permeate the room. It's not on purpose - I'd rather be invisible in those moments - but I'm really bad at faking how I feel.”

“Now I literally roll out of bed and put on whatever is there. I have really enjoyed being a boy this last year.”

“As a 12-year-old, I think everything seems scary.”

“How do we get to equality? I don't think it comes from fear. I think it comes from understanding.”

“The more people know about you, the less they can project who you are supposed to be. It's unfortunate that you really only get one shot at that.”

“I've done jobs where I thought, 'I don't want to be that kind of actor; I don't want to work on something with people who don't have the same kind of goal as I do.'”

“If the entire script feels formulaic, then you know that the film will be like that. But if it's a really interesting script, and the character happens to be formulaic, then maybe there's a way of making them more interesting.”

“On 'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,' I spent two or three months learning how to ride a motorcycle. I wasn't really riding the motorcycle in 98 percent of the movie, but the shots of me getting on and off had to look like I had been doing it for years and years.”

“I can understand wanting to be invisible and mistrusting people and wanting to understand everything before you engage with the world.”

“Because I'm highly empathetic, it's easy for me to put myself in the character's shoes. It's, you know, finding the truth of the moment.”

“It's really helpful when you do something you don't like. You won't make that mistake again. It's like dating a bunch of people who are wrong for you - you learn so much more about yourself that way.”

“I'm probably more insane than most people and less than a lot of others. I'm somewhere in the middle.”