In some movies you feel like you're a very small part of a huge machine. Whereas in the theater you can have a very small part but you can still feel the weight and the gravity of it. Given the nature of theater it's a more concentrated and quiet experience.
The greatest way for people to experience a comedy is to go in not knowing anything about it. But because of marketing it's impossible. Marketing meaning that in order to get people to come you can't just go 'Hey there's a great movie - we're not going to show you anything from it but trust us!'
But in the back of my mind I've always looked to the biggest-scale Hollywood movies. Because to me the most satisfying experience is of watching a movie if it's done really well. And so that aspiration is always it for me if I have the opportunity to do it.
I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience otherwise why go for it? I have to change me and I have to learn things and I have to push me and my limits. By acting I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way.
Making movies is a very different experience in a lot of ways. It's difficult when you're used to owning the copyright and having a landlord's possessory rights - I rent my plays to the companies that do them and if I'm upset I can pull the play. But the only two directors I've worked with are pretty great.
Lord of the Rings was my first experience making movies and at the time I had no ideas how movies were done. I thought that's the way they're done so in a way I had nothing to compare it to.
When you go to the movies with your whole family it's a different experience. For some reason it's something that you're all doing together and you take away something special in that.
I'd done table reads for my own screenplays and I always thought they were so much fun. Why couldn't we do these for other classic screenplays and bring them to life? You can experience live theater where you get to see plays produced by different directors and different casts but there's really nothing like that for movie scripts.
Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that's there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile.
I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.