An extraordinary diva would never sit by herself.

But I really want to be an artist, so therefore I have to live a little bit like a monk.

I wasn't playing a drag queen - I was playing an extraordinary performer.

But as a woman, I really started feeling vulnerable on the set, and I really felt that it was important that I should not be open for invitation or making myself look as though I was waiting for something.

I didn't have parents, so I lived in people's homes... And because I grew up with no parental role models, I learned to become my own friend, eventually my own father and my own mother.

I am not well educated or bright enough to be politically clued in, but I hope in the film that I'm going to shock a few people, win a lot of people over.

I never grew up with a mother's hand - that's why I will forever be insecure, I think, in that primal way.