When you're up for an award at the Oscars, try as you might, it's hard to concentrate on the show.

Im in my mid-30s, Ive won an Oscar, I have four children. You figure out if my deafness has adversely affected my life.

I find the mantle of, she works hard for the money, or, she's overcome so many obstacles a bit overused.

When you're up for an award at the Oscars, try as you might, it's hard to concentrate on the show.

During a visit to California, when a friend of my grandmother's told my parents that I must be deaf because I was not responding to sounds, my father was absolutely convinced that I was simply being stubborn.

Maybe my way of communicating through sign made me more in tune with my body and how it moved. Who knows? I just know when I saw a stage for the first time, I wanted to be on it.

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