I've thought a lot about the power of empathy. In my work, it's the current that connects me and my actual pulse to a fictional character in a made up story, it allows me to feel, pretend feelings and sorrows and imagined pain.

I had a number of great teachers and the ones that really were the strongest influences on me were women. They were really, really smart and interesting women.

So yeah, when I was a kid, when I was 16, 17, I'd come home from high school, and my dad collected all of Barbra Streisand's records. And she was very young then. I think she probably had three records out, and she was 21, and we had them all. And I knew every single song, every breath, every elision, every swell. And I sang along to it.

Having been let out of the barn once, I know I wouldn't be happy if I were home all the time.

I get nervous calling myself an artist. I feel I'm more like an interpreter or a violinist, you know.

I guess a normal woman would find it extremely enjoyable to wear fancy clothes. For me, I didn't enjoy it. It felt like a straight jacket.

People will say to me, ‘You’ve played so many strong women,’ and I’ll say, ‘Have you ever said to a man, “You’ve played so many strong men?”’ No! Because the expectation is [men] are varied. Why can’t we have that expectation about women?