[Admin Note: for length, only Rachel Weisz answers have been reported but you can read the entire conversation at the source.]

Before shooting to stardom in 2001’s Mulholland Drive, Naomi Watts toiled for a decade as a barely employed actress. Helen Hunt initially was told she was “too on-a-sitcom” to play the female lead in 1997’s As Good as It Gets, the movie that won her an Oscar. Perseverance emerged as a theme of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Actress Roundtable, held Oct. 22 at Siren Studios in Hollywood. Awards contenders Watts, 44 (The Impossible); Hunt, 49 (The Sessions); Anne Hathaway, 30 (Les Miserables); Amy Adams, 38 (The Master, Trouble With the Curve); Rachel Weisz, 42 (The Deep Blue Sea); Marion Cotillard, 37 (Rust and Bone); and Sally Field, 66 (Lincoln) sat down for a frank discussion about their biggest fears, their worst auditions, the roles they fought for and the secrets to surviving in Hollywood.

Are you happy now?
Fear is like the steam that fires the combustion engine. You need fear to get a performance going.

In real life, as opposed to acting, what makes you afraid?
What is real life?

Denzel Washington said something interesting at the Actor Roundtable. He said, “You attract what you fear.” Do you agree?
Um, yeah. I started out very avant-garde [at Cambridge] — I’ve sold out very steadily since then! It was more like performance art. It was me and another girl, and we were at university together. We had this stepladder, and we used to basically hurl each other off this ladder, and often we would bleed. We were 18 years old, and we just thought that was really cool and radical. I’m joking about it, but it’s something I’m extremely proud of, and I had a ladder tattooed on my hip to commemorate this theater company — which isn’t, like, a ladder to my nether regions. It’s the avant-garde theater troupe.

Can you say no to press? Mila Kunis said recently that a studio chief had told her she had to pose for a men’s magazine if she wanted to work for the studio.
Hathaway: At The Princess Diaries 2 premiere, they wanted me to arrive in a carriage, and I said no.
Field: I was doing a series called The Flying Nun [1967-70]. I didn’t want to do [the show] more than life itself; I was so massively depressed, I weighed 40,000 pounds. Then they asked me to appear at the Golden Globes. “We want you to fly across the Cocoanut Grove, and we want you to present an award.” I did not have the guts to say, “Are you out of your God darn mind?” So I said, “I won’t wear the nun outfit.” Now I find myself flying across the Cocoanut Grove into John Wayne’s arms at about 400 miles per hour, wearing pink taffeta. It made no sense whatsoever. I wasn’t even the flying nun. Now I was little porky Sally Field in a pink taffeta outfit flying across the Cocoanut Grove. (Laughter.)
Weisz: But you stood your ground.

Have you ever really fought for a role?
I fought for The Constant Gardener. I hounded the director. I called him a lot, and I wrote him a lot of letters. They were quite bold, basically telling him why I thought I was right to play the part. That’s very un-British. But I dropped my British-ness and at the end of the day [director Fernando Meirelles] said that tenacity was right for the character.

Did you watch a tape of the show?
Hunt: When Hillary Clinton was running for president, they were asking Obama about foreign policy and they were asking her, “How do you stay healthy on the road?”
Weisz: Going on with your Hillary Clinton thing, when you do actor roundtables, does age come up as an issue?

We’ve never asked about nudity. But we ask the same questions of the men, except: Do you think Hollywood is tougher for women?
Weisz: It’s interesting: I often get told, “Don’t go and read.” And last year I read the prequel to The Wizard of Oz, and this one character is really evil, the Wicked Witch of the East, and I thought, “I really love this role,” and no one wanted me and [director] Sam Raimi didn’t want me and I said, “I want to go and audition. That’s my job. I’m an actor.” It was one meeting, we sat and talked for a couple of hours, and he asked me a lot of interesting questions about my parents and my childhood. And the casting director read them with me and Sam kind of operated the camera.
Watts: Oh, it’s horrible! I have such bad memories of auditioning that I just get clammy. I mean, I did 10 years of driving around Los Angeles just to get two bits of paper to go and line up for two hours the next day — they couldn’t even fax you those pages. I have such haunting memories of auditioning and have literally been in a room where a director has been sleeping — a very fancy director.

Feel free to say who —
Watts: No, no, I won’t. Although it’s —
Hathaway: Tempting?
Watts: I’m partly English and partly Australian, and I’m not good when I have to prove myself. I’m really not.
Weisz: I’m sure you can do anything! You went from there to here.

Is there any one role that you would love to play?
Maybe we can do the female version of The Hangover — all of us on a 24-hour bender.