When I was 16, nobody else talked like me. Nobody else sounded like me.

People are always casting me for what they call my 'authority.

For a while, I thought, maybe I should direct, until I got to New York and saw the stupidity of that idea. If it's hard to get into acting, what is it like for a woman to become a director?

When I was 16, nobody else talked like me. Nobody else sounded like me.

I think people have always liked in me the combination of being the underdog because I'm a tiny woman but I have enormous authority in myself.

I can't be a man. But I can embrace the head of a man, the intelligence of a man, the spirit of a man.

When I was growing up, particularly during puberty in my teen years, I was so miserable because I elicited so much teasing and meanness from my teenage cohorts.