People want to go to a musical to be razzled and dazzled, so to have an opportunity to do a musical that feels serious and moving is exciting to me. Especially since people think of me as a silly, funny person, so I like to be able to show that other side of me.

I have to create opportunities for myself. But the thing I really have learned is that you gain nothing from sitting around waiting for the phone to ring - you have to do it for yourself.

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater.

There's an infantilization that happens to actresses in general - musical theatre, straight theatre, television, film - we're spoken to like children. Actors are spoken to like children a lot of the time.

I feel like people used to leave their homes and go to their local theatre, and they used to watch ballet dancers and musical theatre performers and tap dancers and orchestras and dog acts. You had to leave your home, be in the presence of other people, know how to behave, and enjoy the human being whose beating heart was in front of you.

Do I want to write a musical? No. I like to do musicals.

I find human behavior to be fascinating, which is probably why I'm an actor, and I think that there are a lot of dangerous misconceptions about mental illness in our society, and I would like to be a part of remedying that - particularly the stigma that surrounds so many mental illnesses.