I was the youngest and only girl in a family of two older brothers.

The only thing I can't do is hear. I can drive, I have a life with four kids, I work on TV, I do movies, so the deafness question, is it that they want to know because, what? Not sure.

Hollywood embraced me in the late '80s because there was a good project I was in and it was different. Nowadays, it's about corporate mentality, box office, youth.

I've been around since I was 19, I won the Oscar when I was 21, I've had a couple of TV series. I've continued to work despite the predictions of some naysayers.

How many deaf people do you know in real life? Unless they live in a cave, or are 14, which seems to be true for most people in this business, what could I possibly tell them that they don't already know?

I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.

Watch me when people say deaf and dumb, or deaf mute, and I give them a look like you might get if you called Denzel Washington the wrong name.