Rather than spend so much time wondering if I'm going to get hired, or is it a problem that I've got this black-tar history, I've just got to keep doing what I'm doing and try to be decent.

Sometimes the things that come out of my mouth are mortifying.

There's a great Albert Camus quote: 'The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.' When I first re-emerged, I was embarrassed to walk down the street. People would come up and say, 'I heard you were dead!' But I had to remind myself that a lot of the stuff I went through was pretty brutal. I'm definitely thankful that some of the rough patches are behind me.

The world at large doesn't always make sense to me, and there are safe havens. Linda Manz in 'Out of the Blue' is one of them.

My family moved to Israel when I was eight until I was 10, and then we came back, and my parents split up. I was suddenly in a single-parent home and on scholarship. Fifth grade was such a hard year for me.

I was this kid who had been raised in New York, and now all of a sudden, my mother decided that she was a Jewish divorcee and therefore she should be living in Miami Beach.

As a woman, I've learned that having a uniform of your staples or setting your look and saying what distinguishes you - like red lips or hair or whatever - leaves so much time for the rest of the day.