I am someone who can't hold on to negativity or hold on to grudges. I might feel something at a certain point, but I get tired after that. I don't carry it with me. I forgive and forget very easily, and that's the only way to be happy and peaceful.

The fruit of your own hard work is the sweetest.

Film is a team thing. There is no auteur.

I have lots of shoes, but I have to be comfortable. Lately, I've stolen my husband's big, ugly Uggs to wear around the kitchen. I want to have them on, then slide into a fabulous heel later. Truth is, I often forget the heel.

In Italy, everybody buys silver for every special occasion. Baptisms, weddings, you get silver.

My husband, Gabriele, is a musician, and I love music, so you can bet it's a really important part of our home entertaining repertoire, even if it means Gabriele making a really good playlist for a dinner party.

I'd love to give my girls a traditional Thanksgiving with turkey and all that jazz, but we've raised them to love Tuscan food so much that they don't care for it. My favorite is a nice polenta with beef stew and broccoli rabe on the side.

When you come into our house, you get a flavor for our life, our travels, our kids, our 18-year-old poodle who is like, blind, deaf and incontinent but so happy.

I've always been a foodie. My grandmother got me hooked on cooking.

I'm teaching my daughters to be ladies by showing them how to dress appropriately when they leave the house, and how to be thoughtful and polite.

Food brings back memories. I had a mom that wasn't a good cook, so I would eat my grandma's food. It was amazing because it brings back a time almost in Technicolor. I see her house, I see her stove; I think about what it felt like when I was sick, and it felt like love.

We sit down with the kids every single night, not that I want to every night - sometimes I'd rather be out with my husband having a martini at a swanky restaurant - but we sit down with our kids every night at dinner.

My mom did not have money. She was a single mom, on and off in periods between marriages. My husband, however, grew up on a wonderful farm in Tuscany, in Florence, and his family was so entertaining in terms of growing their own food and using the fruit of their land. We have very, very different experiences.

I used to live above Manganaro's, when old Times Square was still peaking, and it still had a lot of diners and theaters on the forty deuce, as they used to call it. It was full of character. And it wasn't Disneyland. Now it's so touristy and full of bright lights, I can't stand it. It's like going to a big mall.

I like to have my hair grow, because I need to have hair for different roles. But I'm a woman, so I'm always cutting my hair off and wishing that I hadn't.

Lunch is formal - that's when my husband and I have our dates. And dinner is formal: we sit down every day with the kids at seven o' clock.

I have a full Tuscan lunch and dinner every day in my home; my husband's a fantastic chef.

I'm naturally a muscular gal with some curves, so eating a Mediterranean diet makes my body happy.

I can't live without carbs.

To me, it's a religious experience to sit down at anyone's table. I feel so invited, like it's a sacred place.

I'm a girl who's curvy, and I'm Latvian, but I don't have hips, and I have a tiny waist.

I have a very high metabolism, and I have to constantly eat to keep on going.

On the morning of Thanksgiving, I would wake up to the home smelling of all good things, wafting upstairs to my room. I would set the table with the fancy silverware and china and hope that my parents and grandmother wouldn't have the annual Thanksgiving fight about Richard Nixon.

Thanksgiving was always a favorite holiday for me. The preparation was fun! My grandma and I would walk to the butcher on Jamaica Avenue in Queens, order the bird, and buy all the fixings at the market.