what informs her, both as an actress and as a director, is that she's a keen observer of the human condition.

[Bates had explored some of the themes of the story — depression, overcoming fears — before. Marriage, however, was newer territory.] It's always presented either as the romance or the tragedy, ... We don't look too often at what marriage really is. Marriage masks thousands of different arrangements — behind the scenes, it's all about change and negotiation and compromise. But we have the same attitudes toward marriage that we have toward death and dying — we want to sanitize it.

There's only maybe two pages in Jane's book that deals with the marriage because she was really talking only about her becoming an EMT and going through this midlife crisis, ... So when Alan Hines wrote the screenplay, he sat down with Michael Stern and really got down to the bottom of what was going on in that relationship. The work was there in the script.

I'm not that conservative. I do feel - I guess I'm more of a Democrat at heart, although I've never affiliated myself with a particular party.

And people are always saying: 'Well, you go to Hollywood and you get yourself a film career or a TV series, and then you can do anything you want. Because then you've got the clout.' That had always sounded like a lot of hooey to me, but now I think it's true, unfortunately.

I was never an ingenue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.