Honestly, doing three or four episodes a year [of Two and a Half Men] enabled me to pay my mortgage and do independent films. - Melanie Lynskey

It's good in New Zealand to be humble; it's good to be a quieter person. And then you get to this place where everyone wants you to be brash and confident, and I just was like, 'I don't know how to do that!'

Matt Damon said something to me that I really have lived by ever since ... "At the end of your career, when someone looks over your filmography, all they remember is if the movie was good or not. They're not saying, "Oh, he got [to] play that crazy character!" Or, "Oh, all those people were in that movie." He says "all people know is if the movie was good or not," and all that has to do with whether the script is any good; so, if you consistently choose good scripts — whether you're in three scenes or every scene — you're going to build a very strong résumé.

It's a lot easier to stay under the radar, have people be like, 'You should get more attention, you should have more roles' or whatever. It's weird to have been doing this for 30 years and then all of a sudden [find fame]. I didn't think this would happen. I thought if it was going to happen, it would happen in my 20s. So I'm grateful, and it's really nice to have choices. But it feels vulnerable.