You can be a woman in charge of a production and still be generous and kind and insightful and decisive without being considered a butch in any way.

Before I could talk, I would try to sing.

I've been very lucky to have been chosen for and to have chosen roles that are good. Some are better than others and some projects are better than others, whether it's female or male characters. There's still more that we can do and there's still more stories to be told. I would love to see more female-driven projects in general.

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.

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 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.

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.