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.

I have a surfboard that says 'Linda Hunt Choice TV Actress: Action.' I am an action star! I don't know what that is about, but I like it.

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.

What's it like being opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger? For me? Are you kidding? Maybe if I'm lucky, come up to his navel!

For me to want to be an actor was an improbable idea. I wasn't beautiful or pretty in any conventional way. I wasn't an ingenue at 22. But I was always certain of it and certain of its power. I felt the power when I went to the theater at 9, 10, 12 and 14.

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?

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