I don’t wash my face in the morning. I put my sunscreen on and I go. I only wash it at night. But I never go to bed without washing my face. When I wake up, I go to the bathroom, put on sunscreen, then I go to the gym or the tennis court or I go on a hike with my dogs. I don’t wake up and shower. I grew up playing sports so for me, exercise is like braiding hair. I was a gymnast, a swimmer, I played basketball. But swimming was really my thing. Now I do weights too — more resistance training because I find that that’s one of the best ways to keep calcium in your bones and to stay flexible. My arms are still quite big from Million Dollar Baby.
I want to get my workout in first thing and I will take an hour less sleep for it because I’ll be more energized from my workout than an hour more sleep.
I sleep in the nude.
I don’t brush my teeth until I’ve had my coffee because you know what, there’s nothing that ruins wine or champagne or coffee like mint toothpaste. Who wants to do that? I like my stuff to taste the way it’s supposed to taste. So I brush my teeth after coffee, which is actually usually an espresso. After I put on sunscreen, I’ll put on clothes from my new line, Mission Statement, and then I go downstairs and have my coffee.
After that, I come back up to brush my teeth (sometimes if I’m running late, I don’t brush them), and then I go to the gym or the tennis court or hike or whatever and if I don’t get terribly sweaty, I’ll go into my day like that. I have this sunscreen brush, which is amazing — I put on cream and then use this throughout the day because I don’t want to reapply the cream over a dirty face. It’s amazing, it has UVA and B protection in it, titanium dioxide, vitamins A C and E and it’s chemical-free.
Then I go back downstairs to make a smoothie. I use kale, spinach, blueberries, flax, chia and green — like a supergreen. The bottle has to say supergreen!
I also use cacao and a frozen banana. And I never put an avocado in because that makes me gag. I have this every morning whether or not I work out because I don’t think I get enough vegetables or fruit in otherwise. I only use a handful — as much as I can eat because who eats ten apples? Nobody.
The underlying purpose is to encourage women to live their personal mission statements.
Usually after my workout, I’ll just go straight into my day. That’s why I created Mission Statement — because I didn’t want to look like I was in my workout clothes.
The underlying purpose is to encourage women to live their personal mission statements. Life is really short and I feel like so often, we’re kind of living someone else’s idea of what our life should look like and we don’t really stop to think, “Am I living my true life?”
Work is hard, and you have to find some sort of balance.
I’m 42 and if I could have given myself advice in my thirties, it would be that such a big part of living your dream — which is different for everybody — is navigating the business side of work. I started acting when I was fifteen and I thought it was going to be all creative and telling stories, but there’s a whole business side that you have to navigate. It’s just part of it. And once you understand that and accept the reality that you can’t only do things you want to do, that part of life is sucking it up and doing stuff you don’t want to (and that’s never going to change), you feel much better. It’s art and commerce, that’s the way it’s always been. But I think if you have good people around you to help with stuff you’re not as good at, you can focus more (but not entirely) on other things.
You just have to make sure that the people around you are trying to help you on the journey that you want and not the journey that they necessarily want for you. You have to know when to bring their voices in and when to listen to your gut. Because at the end, all you have is the choice that you made for yourself. And that’s the mantra that I live by: make a choice, make it happen. Be really clear about what it is you want in your life and then work towards that every day – and be open-minded when something else comes! So that you go, “That’s actually a great idea, and if I wouldn’t have been open minded, I wouldn’t have thought about that.”
And that’s the mantra that I live by: make a choice, make it happen.
When I started this clothing line, I didn’t have any expectations other than expecting that doing anything new can be really hard in the most invigorating way.
I took a crash course in business, but I didn’t go to college because I started acting so young. I got my GED but I didn’t even finish high school properly. So I mean, I jumped into the ocean and sometimes it didn’t even feel like I had a life vest. But I like to challenge myself and I like learning new stuff. I co-design the collection so every piece has this functionality and specificity to it which is something that I needed in my life — clothes you could wear to work out, but also just to work.
I think people think I’m just the face of this brand, but it’s my brainchild, it’s my baby. I created it. It’s an idea that I had and then I had to get all of the people around me to help me see it to life. But you know, I travel to all my factories. I know the people who make my clothes. I’m fundraising, I’m making business plans.
And all while I have my acting career. But I asked for it and I’m really excited about it. And what I’m mostly excited about is connecting with women, people who are learning. There’s nothing that inspires me more than women who have persevered through adversity. That’s true whether it’s in my acting or now through Mission Statement. I think it makes us feel less alone in our insecurities.
Check out Mission Statement here. Photos by Edith Young.
