Quotes

The audiences that inspire me are the ones that are not asleep.

I knew before I knew anything else that my career was in Europe. I wanted a career there. I've always thought that was who I am and that what I look like belongs in Italy. I made a film there and I looked around and thought, 'God, I'm a beauty here. I mean, I'm really gorgeous here.'

For a long time, I don't think people thought I was capable of comedy. I mean, I'm Italian, so crying has always been easy for me - our emotions are just underneath the skin. But I've always had a black sense of humor, and I've always been able to find humor in any situation.

I'm totally Italian, and it's a big personality. But I'm not a diva. If you could see the way I'm dressed in daily life, that's not a diva. Appearances are so not important to me.

I'm fairly tough on anybody who isn't there for the play. I'm very tough on people who are in it for the wrong reason. I'm very tough on people who don't remember that there's an audience out there paying a lot of money. The bottom line is that I love the theater. I realized when I came back [after an absence in L.A.] and put my foot on the boards, this is where I belong.

[after snatching a cellphone during a performance] We work hard onstage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members.

There's still very intelligent audiences that support the theater, but the ticket price is outrageous. There's so many obstacles that prevent theater from being the tool it should be in society, which is an education.

Broadway has also changed considerably. I think we've spent - not we, but whoever's in charge of, whatever - has actively dumbed down the audience. And so the attention span of the majority of the audience, I think, is much less than it was in the past, and I don't think plays are going to have long lives on Broadway - I feel as though it's turning into Disneyland, a circus and Las Vegas.