I just don't want to be self-obsessed.

Acting can be an amazingly cathartic thing - especially for young girls.

It's gross. We use real brains - I think they're lamb or cow or something. Intestines smell. Brains don't really smell, but what's amazing about the brain is that it's almost like scrambled eggs or soft tofu, almost like a gel. The brain controls so much of what we do, but you could put your finger right through it.

The older you get the more realistic it is that you're significant other is your significant other. I mean, you'll always have your girlfriends or your guy friends, but the person you're married to is usually your No. 1.

Where I come from, you don't just say, 'Oh, I'm going to become an actor.' Talk like that and they think you're crazy.

I was raised by drag queens, practically ... my mother died when I was four-years-old, so I was effectively raised by a bunch of different people. A lot of those people were friends of my sister, Kathleen, who had all these gay friends. She would baby-sit me everyday, and she would take me over to her friend's houses with all kinds of things going on: tucking, and eyebrow drawing, waxing, all sorts of things. I was literally raised by gay men.

For me, being able to work with somebody who I don't have to translate my experience to all the time - that's important, because I'm not ­having to walk someone down the path of racial understanding to tell a story about a woman of color.