Even actresses that you really admire, like Reese Witherspoon, you think, ‘Another romantic comedy?’ You see her in something like ‘Walk the Line’ and think, ‘God, you’re so great!’ And then you think, ‘Why is she doing these stupid romantic comedies?’ But of course, it’s for money and status.
When I was growing up, my favorite movie was ‘Somewhere in Time’ with Christopher Reeve, which is a hugely romantic, sappy movie. I couldn’t understand it when the guy didn’t get the girl or the girl didn’t get the guy in love stories. I was definitely a sap.
I don’t believe in having one partner for your whole life, but I hope I get married. I want to have a husband and two kids and a nice little life baking pies. I’m quite romantic. It’s definitely important to have someone make you feel special.
I don’t want to be typecast as a heroine who does a certain kind of cinema, which is why I experiment with the types of films that I do. But yes, I won’t deny that romantic love stories or romantic comedies are what I enjoy doing the most, because as an audience those are the kind of films that I like watching.
Some have called we rock and roll performers who never retire ‘troubadours.’ I enjoy this misnomer immensely. While there are many differences between me and my distant predecessors in L’Occitane, I do believe there is a lineage that connects us of the last 70 years with those romantic singers of the High Middle Ages.
For my parents’ generation, the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love; it was a partnership. It’s about creating family; it’s about creating offspring. Indian culture is essentially much more of a ‘we’ culture. It’s a communal culture where you do what’s best for the community – you procreate.
Well, whenever I visit New York it feels pretty romantic, so I sometimes think about coming back here. But then I wonder if it’s just ‘cause I’m visiting that it feels so good. But also, Minnesota. I could imagine myself finding a place in Minneapolis.
I was meant to date the captain of the football team, I was going to be on a romantic excursion every Saturday night, I was destined to be collecting corsages from every boy in town before prom, accepting such floral offerings like competing sacrifices to a Delphic goddess.
I tend to play strong characters and people just assume that I would want to play romantic comedies, which I would love to do, but there are other women that do it so great and they maybe couldn’t do what I do, play the kind of characters that I play.
Woody Allen is really the ultimate. I love that he believed in himself enough to do what he did. And I have that same feeling – that there’s nobody that looks like me in movies, nobody would cast me as a romantic lead, but I want to do it and I feel confident that I can.
So many of my favorite stories, in any medium, are about friendship. Those relationships are so often just as emotional and complex as any romantic or family dynamics, and yet there’s a dearth of resonant, grounded films about platonic bonds in American films.
I’ve seen plays that are, objectively, total messes that move me in ways that their tidier brethren do not. That’s the romantic mystery of great theater. Translating this ineffability into printable prose is a challenge that can never be fully met.
I’ve always loved the language of flowers. I discovered Kate Greenaway’s ‘Language of Flowers’ in a used bookstore when I was 16 and couldn’t believe it was such a well-kept secret. How could something so beautiful and romantic be virtually unknown?
Fall 2013 was inspired by the 1970s equestrian lifestyle. I wanted to incorporate the moody and romantic – intricate baroque detailing and classic menswear elements – with something tougher and edgier in a nod to London’s rock n’ roll underground.
Romantic ideas about the heart fly in the face of known fact, but that doesn’t matter and never has. People many thousands of years ago knew that the heart is basically a blood pump, but that didn’t keep them from also believing it was the seat of romantic love (and all other strong emotion).
I once took the key off my girlfriend’s key ring so that I could surprise her when she got home. So I did this whole romantic setup in our bedroom with flowers and rose petals. She was so mad when she got home, but then when she walked in, she was so surprised.
In ‘A Room With a View’ there’s a lovely scene with Julian Sands and Helena Bonham-Carter in a wheat field. It was simply the right time of day: late afternoon, that golden light, wheat and poppies… So romantic. But I had no idea it would turn out that well, since we so rarely shoot in a studio.
America to me is so varied and exciting. I always feel nostalgia for the place I’m not in, and then I get there and find myself in a traffic jam going into the Lincoln Tunnel, and I think, ‘God, why was I romanticizing this part of the country?’ I think it has to do with the romantic, unrealistic temperament.
I really love the idea of the poetically mad – the character that is imbued with the romantic madness. Like River from ‘Firefly’ or Drusilla from ‘Buffy.’ Someone dangerously unhinged, where you’re really not sure they’re going to be reliable minute-to-minute.
My personal style changes wherever I am. When I’m in Ibiza, I’m a bit girlier because there’s an opportunity to be more romantic and dress up for the beach scene. Whereas in New York, I tend to go for suiting and tailoring that almost feels like weaponry for the city – but I think I’m quite playful no matter what.
When you start off acting, it does seem very romantic, and the make-believe part of it all seems very exciting. It’s only later that you begin to realize how fascinating the work is – that it’s a bottomless pit, and you never get to the end of it.
What man is there, surrounded though he be with the love of wife and children, who does not retain a memory of the romantic affection of boys for each other? Having felt it, he could scarcely have forgotten it, and if he never felt it, he missed one of the most golden of the prizes of youth, unrecapturable in mature life.
As far as the lack of hits goes, I think perhaps it’s because I’ve played a lot of different roles and have not created a persona that the public can latch on to. I have played everything from psychopathic killers to romantic leading men, and in picking such diverse roles I have avoided typecasting.
For the longest time, I didn’t even want to admit I was serious about music. Before the Shins, I would tell myself, ‘Oh, I’m going to figure something out someday.’ I had this romantic vision of being this old dude maybe making guitars or something.
In the West, audiences think I am a stereotyped action star, or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong, I did a lot of comedy, many dramatic films, and most of all, romantic roles, lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero.
