Anna Karenina

Name: Anna Karenina
Author: Leo Tolstoy (also rec’d by Ernest Hemingway , Philip Roth & Susan Sontag )

by Leo Tolstoy (also rec’d by Ernest Hemingway , Philip Roth & Susan Sontag )

This taught me a lot about acting. You start out thinking Kitty is an idiot or Lévin is naive or Anna’s husband is dead inside—and then you see them crack: Each is both a good guy and a bad guy, capable and not capable, makes mistakes and saves people and saves themselves. That’s what I believe every character in a movie should be, and I hope that the people I play who are easy to judge—the ones that make you think, I’m nothing like that —by the end, you have some insight into them.

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Maggie Gyllenhaal

"This taught me a lot about acting. You start out thinking Kitty is an idiot or Lévin is naive or Anna’s husband is dead inside—and then you see them crack: Each is both a good guy and a bad guy, capable and not capable, makes mistakes and saves people and saves themselves. That’s what I believe every character in a movie should be, and I hope that the people I play who are easy to judge—the ones that make you think, I’m nothing like that —by the end, you have some insight into them."

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Bruce Springsteen

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Chelsea Handler

"I don’t know if I have to expound on why I love this book, but everyone should read Tolstoy, and this was the first one of his works I read. So, it’s like a first boyfriend. Or my first Cabbage Patch Kid."

Favorite books · radicalreads.com

David Copperfield

"As good as they say. Tolstoy is a cardiologist. The man knew everything about the human heart. It’s all on display here."