Can you recall a specific instance or conversation?
There’s a beautiful image I see every single day from my car. The stoplight is red and I’m idling at a crosswalk, and crossing the street are little Arab girls going to their Christian school in uniforms, and nuns, and American Jewish tourists, and religious Jews with their full beards and hats, and secular students. And they’re all crossing the street together, jumbling, fully fine, everyone lives together, they’re neighbors. I don’t want to idealize or romanticize it, because it’s not like they’re hanging out. But it’s amazing when you’re living in a place with the mythology of all this violence—I mean, it exists, but you also see, in the very place where it exists, that it’s possible to ignore it at the same time. Or defeat it, just by everyday people with each other.

Are you ever afraid?
Today I was driving next to a bus, and all of a sudden I had this thought, “Turn your head away so if it explodes it doesn’t hit you.” Then I thought, “But what if the back of my head gets hit and I can no longer see, because that’s the part of your brain where”—just these horrible thoughts, so I was like, “You have to move on.” I hate getting swept up in any paranoia of anti-Semitism, but you really realize what a target you are. On my way to the States to do Closer press, we landed in London, and they had armed guards escorting us from the El Al plane to the baggage claim, with those movable walls that are bulletproof. And it was only for the El Al flight. Anytime they make an attempt against anyone, it’s like, “They’re trying to kill me, kill my neighbor, kill anyone.” The whole concept of terror disregards the individual. I want peace, I want everyone to have dignity and independence and autonomy. But the very few, powerful people who commit these acts of violence can decide about that.

The view in Closer is that sex is a battleground. Do you agree?
I don’t necessarily. I do feel that people who say men and women are exactly equal in every way are silly. First of all, it’s hard to make a category of all men and all women. You can’t take one example and generalize, even if it makes it easier to categorize the world. But I do see that my girlfriends, already at 23, are thinking, “What career can I choose that will also suit having children?” And it is limiting. Whereas my male friends aren’t thinking that way. My generation is largely children of mothers who worked. My mom didn’t, so it’s interesting to contrast how my life was, having my mom around all the time, but also not seeing her working, versus my friends who got to see their moms working hard, but barely saw them. Mostly I think guys think about a job that will support their family, which pushes them away from family contact, while family pushes women away from careers. That’s an old problem. But I feel it’s resurging.

What other kinds of research did you do for Closer?
I visited strip clubs and talked to a lot of women who worked there, and I took pole dancing and lap dancing lessons to get the physicality right. [laughing] Well, try to. When you walk into a strip club, which I did for the first time for this movie, it’s such a complicated power issue. The women seem so fully in control. The men can’t talk, their jaws are open, they’re not allowed to touch anyone, so their hands are on their laps. Obviously, I’m talking about the nicer clubs where the women are protected. They can really get anything they want out of the guys, basically. But the men are paying for it, so they’re ultimately the powerful ones.

Some of my research and reactions really surprised me. For example, a lot of my friends are investment bankers, and it’s shocking to me that they have to take their clients out to strip clubs all the time; it’s the usual way business is done. You realize how that maintains the male-dominated status quo in the business world. I also thought about, why don’t women go to clubs to see men? I think because it’s not sexy for a man to be degraded, at least not in the popular culture. That whole power thing, having the power over a guy to have him come dance for you, would be humiliating and not sexy. So that was interesting to notice.

And then the other thing, I was trying to make a theoretical inference between stripping in a nice club where you’re not going to be hurt, and dancing or acting or any kind of live performance. What distinguishes acting that’s different from stripping? Is it that strippers are naked? Well, a lot of people onstage or in modern dance are naked. Is it the personal contact with the audience? No, there’s performance art that has personal contact; I mean, Cats has personal contact. [laughs] The closest I could come is that stripping desires to cause only one reaction, namely sexual arousal, while most art should be more open, try to get more than one response. That was surprising to me—the line was much fuzzier than I imagined.

What’s your dream for your life?
I just want to explore everything. I want to try new things all the time and never stop. I mean, always giving myself ample leisure time [laughs]. But never losing curiosity and wonder at the world.

Do you imagine you’ll have a family?
Absolutely. I mean, knock on wood, but I know that my relationships with people are the most important things I have in my life, and to continue creating those bonds is amazing. People are such amazing creatures, and to be able to make one—I mean, I can’t make anything. I can’t make a paper airplane, but I can make a person! That’s an amazing gift. If I’m able to, I would love to. It’s crazy, this thing grows inside you and then it crawls on the floor. It’s like Alien or something. Whenever a guy says, “Thank God I don’t have to give birth,” I’m like, “Are you crazy? That’s the luckiest thing about being a girl.”