PREMIERE: Wow. In Being Julia, you get to have a veritable orgy of a romp as a saintly-to-slutty, foolish-to-wise, imperious-to-needy theatah diva. Are you practicing your Oscar speech yet?
Thank God the waiter just handed me the menu at the perfect moment. [laughs, turns to waiter] Do you have a Caesar salad?

Not so fast. Don’t you care if you’re “Oscared”?
Do I care? [smiles demurely] I guess the truth is that I am wisely reluctant to comment on that. But this diva, Julia, is a dream role, no question.

You get to play one, but do mommies of four get to be divas?
Good question. I’m sure my children would say yes sometimes. And my husband [Warren Beatty] might say that, too. But I don’t think too often. [to waiter] Could you kill the music? We’ve got a tape recorder here.

Diva!
Exactly. [laughs]

Well, you have said if you weren’t able to have a life separate from the family, you’d be “one of those women with a pistol to her head, or having a nervous breakdown.”
Like Hedda Gabler. [laughs] Acting to me is like life’s blood, it’s so important, but . . . well, I completely lost my interest [after my first child], so when it came back I thought, “Okay, this is what happens—it’s cyclical.” But I know it’s always inside me percolating.