My husband watched it live online and I was awakened with coffee and the good news. He's my biggest fan and he was really rooting for this to happen. - Vera Farmiga

I've gravitated towards independent cinema because you have to work harder in studio scripts to flesh out characters, particularly female ones. They are not as sharply edged, they tend to be quite watery. They are not renderings of women as I know them.

As an actor, you're sort of the court-appointed lawyer for the character. And that's what used to draw me to scripts – something in a woman that I wanted to defend, something that I recognized or wanted to understand, something that turned my head.

It's just an incredible gift, giving birth. I never felt so empowered, so powerful, so womanly as I did after I gave birth. I felt more feminine than I ever had in my life.