Being a wife and a mother is very gratifying, but it's not a creative expression and that's something I need to be happy.

I remember being in Atlantic City once when I was 18 or 19, and a sea of people were screaming and pulling their hair because I was there. It was weird. Nobody deserves adulation like that. I tried to explain it to my kids once. I said, 'Mommy used to be kind of cool, kind of like a Britney Spears.

The pleasant surprise for me is that when I look into Tony's eyes, he's still 100% present, sharing everything that's going on. Acting with him is like a beautiful dance.

Most of my actor friends dont believe its possible to let go of it and be happy, and for a while that was true for me. For the first two years I ached, every day. And I had such bad dreams. But then I made the decision to start working on my little shop and all that went away.

My heart goes out to the Lindsay Lohans and Britneys who have really had childhood taken from them and probably missed important developmental steps. They have become sort of "public domain" and something to be made money on. There's no sense of self there, I'm sure of it.

What I have found is that my fan base will follow me to whatever I'm doing. They gave me a big tune-in for Hallmark. They were just happy to see me working again, and my job is not to disappoint them, not to cheat them.

A lot of actors think they can't be happy without the acting... But I think I couldn't be happy with it anymore.