I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.

Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again. When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country. It doesn't matter how educated they are. By living in the world and living their experiences, they bring extraordinary truths. I try to do those truths justice.

I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time.

President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.

You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.