I usually arrive at the first rehearsal with a vague memory of most of it. But the real work happens in rehearsal, oddly enough, because what happens is that you match the words to the movement, and once you know where you're moving, then the words that accompany that movement become not locked into your mind and your brain and your whole body.

You learn the values that are inherent in the scene that the writer has written. You learn about who you as a character are in relation to those others who are working with you within that scene.

As a kid, I just was a contract player at MGM Studios. They put me into goodness knows how many different roles.Some of them were wonderful and some of them were very just distasteful and awful because I was playing out of my age range and I was thoroughly uncomfortable, let's put it that way. So it took me many years to find my acting feet.

The thing I always say is that I wasn't going out reaching for roles, I wasn't fighting for roles - people came to me. They always came to me.

I can't say that I deserve longlife; I don't. I've just been around long enough. They say, "My God, she's still here."

Believe me, it jabs you. When you're on the side of buses and New York loves you, you love to go out there every night. It's like a race. Curtain opens, out you go, and New York is yours.

Actually the years when I was playing totally un - well, they were just roles that just went by the board, you wouldn't want to know. But anyway, I'm glad I had that chance to build my craft.