I think you have to have a little bit of a screw loose to think that you can [become an actor] because the odds are so against you. I was just crazy enough to think I could do it.

I enjoy playing characters where I get to sort of change my look, my voice. It's not about what she wears, it's about what she's got inside.

You know, the hard thing about audiences not liking what a character does is that they sometimes take it out on the actor personally. That's something that you know when you become an actor or actress, but it's always hard to deal with when it actually happens.

People are drawn to watching things that are dramatic. And the tighter a relationship is, the more dramatic it can be. That's something family lends itself to. Everybody has family, somewhere, somehow. Those relationships are always very complex. This takes it to almost Greek-tragedy-level heights. That's fun to watch, although it's very uncomfortable. It explores the darkest sense of family.

I think there are great roles for women in television because there is time to allow those characters to evolve. Even if you're the wife or the girlfriend or whatever it is that we women are, playing those things on TV, they are much more drawn out and there are greater arcs for the role. The roles are more integral to the complexity of the story.

When I was a kid, 'Scooby Doo' was, hands down, my favorite cartoon. Even when I was older, when I was in college studying and I needed to tune out for a while, I'd watch 'Scooby Doo.

I remember when I took the role on E.R., I thought, 'I haven't really been able to play a working class woman. I've played girls, I've played funny, but I haven't played a working class woman. That sounds like something I'd like to do.