Rachel McAdams

I love auditioning. Since 'The Notebook' and 'Wedding Crashers,' I don't have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don't audition. What if they hate what I want to do?

I use filming as an excuse to take classes. I got my certification in sailing for 'Wedding Crashers,' and now I can handle a 26-foot boat. I played a seamstress once, so I took sewing classes. I love dipping into these other lives.

I really like having a life outside work. I sometimes wish I did more career stuff and was in that Hollywood scene a bit more. But Toronto's my home.

I love stories with love in them. I just prefer those films. Every so often, I come across a film where there's no love story. It doesn't have to be romantic, but there's a lack of love, and I don't get that.

I'm a hopeless romantic and I believe that you can find love in many different places and be very conflicted. I've discovered as I've grown up that life is far more complicated than you think it is when you're a kid. It isn't just a straightforward fairytale.

With a film, you just don't have time to build sympathy for the character. But I think we're moving away from that in TV. With TV, you have a little more leeway to allow them to rise and fall and rise again and be much more complicated beings.

I don't really desire things. I prefer to spend my money on experiences, on meals or travel.

I confess I am a romantic. I love romance, and I think it's really fun and delicious and some of my favorite films are love stories. I think that you just get a chance to fall in love with the characters so much and you get to explore their lives so deeply.

I'm not an amazing cook. But I can follow a recipe!

I try to shut out ideas about why you should do things. Trying to do good architecture and really designing a career? There's some attention to be paid to that, but I don't think it's everything.

I sort of always had an inkling towards some kind of an art form. I grew up in a very small town, and I just figure-skated. My dad played hockey and I was surrounded by sports, but it wasn't quite doing it for me. I wasn't totally fulfilled, and I did a lot of skating.

When you're playing music through the streets of London at 2 o'clock in the morning, there's something so cool and magical about that. It takes you to a special place very quickly.

I've discovered as I've grown up that life is far more complicated than you think it is when you're a kid. It isn't just a straightforward fairytale.