When my mother died, I remember thinking: Thank God I had talked to her about her own life, because sometimes when a parent dies, there can be a moment afterward where you think, “Oh my God, I wish I had known more.” . “I wish I had asked them about their childhood, their first job, or their past loves.” I was thinking the other day: “God, how lucky I am.” Because they’ll have a whole library of movies showing what I looked like since I was 17. I was pregnant while working with my children. They will be able to see knowing that it is them inside the pregnant belly and things like that. This is somewhat extraordinary.

Many questions are asked about Eternal Sunshinewithout saying anything Titanic or Mare. What are some projects you’d like to be asked about? More?

I would be glad if people ask me more Revolutionary RoadActually. What people say is: “You should work with Leo again.” Then they go on the whole Leo tangent, which I totally understand, but Revolutionary Road– damn hell blew us all sideways. It’s an incredibly difficult material. I was so proud of that movie and what Leo and I, Frank and April, were able to create. It was very cruel. So I’m a little surprised.

I think the other one maybe Iris. People don’t ask me much Iris. It is such a sensitive movie. That was the first thing I did after giving birth to my daughter. I go to work with a baby, I play Iris Murdoch, Judi Dench‘s great Iris Murdoch – I was shitting my pants.

I watched you talk about doing Lee a little bit, and I saw you cry a few times as I thought about it. How do you usually give up on projects? Is it difficult for you?

Some experiences in life stay with you. Some of the characters you play stay with you. Lee is someone who will stay with me in ways I cannot understand because she was so inspiring in how she lived her life, how she walked in the world, how she carried her physical self. There was no sense of shame. I find myself very moved when I talk about the film because it was such an original retelling of her story. We had his photographs and were tasked with creating narratives about how he captured each of these images. Lee didn’t tell anyone what happened to him.

Sometimes it can be pure joy to just let go and say, “Okay, we’re done.” I might want to do that, but I can’t, and then it becomes: “Okay, how do I talk about therapy scenes? Mare and four and a half years later you still don’t find them sentimental? Because I personally am. I don’t want it to sound indulgent or weird, but sometimes I find it very hard to let go, which is probably why I don’t work harder. I think I need to take big breaks between things to get back to life and start over. That was always my way of managing it.