Once again, I've been thwarted by the massive difference between my vision of the successful me and the me I'm currently stuck with.

I didn't grow up identifying with beauty. I grew up thinking I could be smart and funny - those are the things I got feedback on.

It's core to my beliefs now: Sometimes in being given a challenge, you're actually being given a real opportunity, and a lot of that is how you handle it. Do you feel sorry for yourself or do you think, All right! I'll see what I can make out of this? I've had that over and over. If I hang out in the disappointment, I'll just be disappointed all the time.

All my references are 50 years old-when somebody shot J.R., you know? Oh my god, I'm 100!

None of my characters have really had jobs.

My biggest goal was - I thought, God, if I could just be a rep company member at the Arena Stage in Washington, D. C. and get to play a bunch of parts in a year! And now in my work everything is about promoting it. It's not about the doing of it! Everything is: You have to sell it, and they ask you to tweet about it or do photo shoots, even for the smallest job. There's an imbalance in terms of what is actually gratifying. The stuff that is gratifying is, like I said, the day of work and the doing of it.

I think there's more pressure to stand out in a way that is measurable externally. The fame culture is definitely way worse and weirder than it was when we were in high school.