I started in theater when I was 14 in the Henry Street Playhouse on the Lower East Side in New York. You hustle, you beat the sidewalk, the pavement - audition, audition. I just started working around town everywhere. I mean everywhere - the Village, Harlem, you know. Brooklyn Academy Of Music. Just job after job.

I used to teach. I quote American history and I love words. I've read the dictionary I don't know how many times throughout my life. People say, "You read the dictionary?" I say, "Yes, and you can really believe it."

If you want to do other things, you have to leave soap operas, otherwise you'll be there forever, which is not bad, you know. Some people have made a great living off of being on soap operas. But if you want to branch out you have to leave early, otherwise you'll never get the shot.

I just want to be powerful and in charge, or crazy and in charge. Say anything I want, and still know everybody loves you. Or, you know, like Jessica Lange. She's not old-looking, but she's older and she's working on that America Horror stuff. Wicked.

Well, there's no other person like me. Ain't nobody else like me. It's flattering. I don't like to do it too much because I get tired of me. But people ask, so I get to do it every now and then.

I just remember lot of men running around in little tiny gold shorts! The format - it was kind of hard. You really have to know about pop culture and I'm not really knowledgeable about a lot of those things. I know what I like. They'd ask about Gwyneth Paltrow, and I don't know anything about her, except her mother. I know who her mother is. So you really have to be current and relevant.

I never wanted to be a mother, and when I got the show I was really upset. I was like "I'm not sexy anymore!" The more you become a mom, you're not sexy, which of course is crap. But that's the way actors look at it. Of course, that's not true now. But everybody expects you to look differently and act differently.