The majority of work I do is in independent films, where you're lucky if you have five takes.

In 8th grade I started doing theatre and I remember it was as though I had taken a trip to a foreign land that I had never seen before yet felt completely at home. I remember feeling a genuine wave of happiness and of feeling complete.

That's the hardest part of acting: when it is ultra-personal, when it is deeply personal, and there's no lying involved. You can't fake it, you can't get by it. This is dealing with the most primal instincts and emotions that a mother can have.

I have to watch the news or my day is not complete.

I try to take off the rose-colored glasses and view it in all facets, but I probably would be lying if I didn't say that probably the way in for a film with me is the performance. But I have been on juries where you have to give Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography. So you do have to put on several different hats and I try to broaden my scope. And what's great is, when you're in a room full of people who are not your milieu, so to speak, you find yourself speaking in a way that you do discover a slightly discerning eye.

Why are comedic parts for women the exception, not the rule?

The majority of work I do is in independent films, where you're lucky if you have five takes.