Being an actor myself I realize that all actors believe they are qualified to play any role. If you showed me a script with a black woman character I would tell you that I could do it. That is what we do. We act as if we are someone else.

I moved out to L.A. in July and Hot L Baltimore started in September or October. So I had done a few things. I'd done a Mary [Tyler Moore]. I'd done a Waltons. I hadn't done a Rhoda yet I don't think.

I was doing a play in New York, which we had done in New Haven, Connecticut. It was an American premiere of a play called The Changing Room written by a wonderful man named David Story. It was about a rugby team in the North of England. It got just screaming rave reviews. At that time, virtually every major critic went up to the Long Wharf Theater to see a new play like that.

I did my first movie,a movie called Whiffs, which very few people ever saw.

In a very real way Norman [Lear] godfathered me into my career. He was the best mentor anybody could have ever had.

Most profoundly deaf people have speech that is very difficult to understand.

I had a very low voice for the character in the show. I said, "That's not actually my voice. That's the character's voice." I'm being such an actor.