ACTORS 

  
Nervousness is an actor’s best friend. Don’t deny it. Don’t shut it off or try to make it go away or push down on it like a plunger. Embrace it. Include it in who you are. It’s there to give you a vitality, a liveliness.

-- Mike Nichols


Perhaps the most surreal indicator of [Cara] Seymour's ascendancy through moviedom's ranks was her appearance last February before the Motion Picture Association of America, where she and Lions Gate co-president Mark Urman unsuccessfully appealed the NC-17 rating dumped on American Psycho due to a scene depicting a menage a trois between Seymour, Christian Bale, and Krista Sutton. "They were very shocked that the woman who had been riding about with her bum out was talking to them," Seymour reports. "People always assume you're the character you play, so you're only capable of giving a blow job. So I'm arguing on behalf of satire in front of all these Hollywoody guys who've obviously been with hookers and stuff, and they're getting hot under the collar while we're dancing around semantically. i mean, sex is good for you! And I wanted to say wait a minute, I feel no fucking shame about anything I've done, it's you lot who should be ashamed for saying sex is bad and letting violence play out." Seymour finally pauses for breath and laughs. "Fear of pleasure -- that's what I'd call the rating."

-- Jessica Winter, "Cara Seymour Looks for Trouble," Village Voice