I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night — there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.

Dream of the impossible: dream of surpassing yourself, dream of nirvana, dream of moksha, dream of the kingdom of God. Only then will you start working and moving towards it, and only then with that dream, will your feet have the quality of dance.

When I was 5 or 6, I already was telling people, I want to be a movie star. I was already a movie fan, though at the time I thought the actors were actually behind the screen. As a boy, my dream was just to be a movie star; later, I wanted to be an actor.

As a child, I wanted to become a scientist, a magician, a poet, an architect, an illustrator, a sculptor, an actor, a philosopher, a photographer, a playwright and an animator. So by the time I was 13 or 14, I was convinced that it would be possible to a be of all of these if I made films.

When I was a little girl (but being raised as a little boy), what I wanted more than anything was to be a dancer. How I longed for it — the lights, the stage, the gorgeous costumes, most of all for the delivering grace of movement in harmony with a choreography greater than myself. Like a little Chinese , I had a beautiful, impossible dream. But unlike Billy Elliot’s, mine was never realized. and two left feet saw to that: I was laughed, bullied, or shamed out of every dance class I attempted.

It was more fun dreaming about being a movie star than actually being one.

My Hollywood dream started when I was young … I was a huge fan of Steve McQueen, Tom Cruise, Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergmann and all these giants even though it was difficult for me to get into this business.

I wanted to be a movie star. But movie stars are not what they used to be. When I was a kid, I thought movie stars were women and men who were in these great films that we still look at now...And people my age don't even know who those people are. I can't even have a conversation with most people of my generation about that, because they'd be like, "Okay, she's a freak..." And the worst part is, in terms of what people see of me, I have become this girl who just loves to be photographed, doesn't know how to focus, doesn't know how to work on set, just loves the attention, knows how to go out at night, knows how to party. And you know what? I was 20 years old. I never went to college. And I lived maybe six months out of my life like that, doing something wrong, and then I stopped. God forbid I should have ever learned my lesson. But at this point it's so hard for people to even believe that there was a lesson to be learned at all, because they just think I'm wrong. All these people think I'm never going to be right, because it's more interesting to fabricate this other girl. Who wants to read a tabloid story about a girl who is doing well?

Like so many other nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an 'artist', i.e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of tedious and dronelike.

My dream when I was a child was to be a medical doctor so that I could help people suffering from diseases.

I saw the musical Grease as a freshman in high school. The actors looked so happy. That’s when I started thinking that maybe I would like to become a musical actor. My parents were fervently against it. They wanted me to live an ordinary life. I didn’t really have a dream before acting. I think I just lived without meaning. So I counseled my younger siblings to think carefully about what they want to do, and study hard to go to a college that will support their dreams. Sometimes I wonder what I would have done if I had not found acting.

When I was a little girl I dreamed of being a princess. Little did I know then that all these dreams could and would come true.

I always wanted to be an actor, but I had this whole plan to go to a good drama school and do it that way. I wasn't trying to get into movies; someone came to my high school and auditioned some girls, so it was a complete accident.

My first dream was to be a hairdresser, then a model.