I had two chances to fail [working for Disney]. The first one, they said was "too juvenile." The second one was,they give you general areas to work in. They said, "Set 'My Fair Lady' in ancient Egypt."I came up with this idea about an Egyptian princess, and I gave her, as a sidekick, a little scarab. I had a telephone meeting with the executive "handling" me, and he said, "I looked over the notes. Very cute. But lose the beetle.Beetles don't talk." Well, how do you answer that? I said, "Excuse me just a moment, I've got a teacup calling me on the other line."

There's a real fantasy quotient to my work. Any play that I've written for myself to perform in basically begins with the idea, "Wouldn't it be fun to be, say, Jean Harlow in a pre-code movie?"

I saw "Follies" again at thirty, and you know, I had this great appreciation for [Stephen] Sondheim's brilliance, his lyrics.

It's more interesting to put yourself in the place of Bette Davis than Irene Dunne, I guess.

I grew up with "Follies." I saw it when I was fifteen. It was the original production, and of course, that production will never be equaled.

I always tend to say "no" to everything, but now I've decided to say "yes" to everything. Now, I'm doing all sorts of things that I would've said "no" to before.

The story of Judith. But one of the reasons I'm doing it is because the roles I've been writing for myself over the past few years have gotten older and older. And I thought, You know, before it's too late, I want to play a sexy, tough young gal again. And I always wanted to do a Biblical epic. So, I'll play a beautiful young widow who saves her people from the Assyrians.