I find that’s one of the great things about acting-you have the opportunity to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Each character faces a dilemma in her life, and as an actor you’re able to step into that character’s skin, look through her eyes. You leave transformed, a different person, because once you live a little bit of someone’s life, it changes you.

I was just lucky enough to grow up in a time when they actually had drama departments in schools.

But there isn't any second half of myself waiting to plug in and make me whole. It's there. I'm already whole.

I never felt safe. In high school, acting is what I did to stay sane. It wasn't about showing off; it was about revealing parts of myself that I couldn't reveal anyplace else.

There were the days when women were under contract, and they were thought of as a commodity, so they hired the best writers and a lot of them were women at the time. This was in the thirties and forties, to make product for the people who were under contract, who were their assets to the studios. But that doesn't exist anymore - and as a result, the people who are in the industry write products that interest them.

Louis Armstrong said you have to live a life. And that's right. If you don't live a life, you don't got nothin' to come out your horn.

I'm an actor. I'm trying to be the character and do what they're doing.