I remember feeling the temperature change the first time the curtain came up, the difference between the audience temperature and the stage temperature. I'll never forget it.

I have friends say, "Don't you want to have a little you?" The jury's still out on that for me. I don't have a definitive answer, but I do know that I can look back on some of the things I've worked on and some of the things that have literally come out of my imagination and be just as proud of it as if I had created a person. I feel like that shouldn't be of any less value. It can't be because it's what my life is, and I don't want to make it smaller or more palatable just because society tells you to. If you can get comfortable with sacrifice, then you are having it all.

I will do plays as long as they're interested in having me do them. It's the biggest opportunity to learn the most about how to act. Something I discover every time I'm doing one is how little I know about acting - how important the art of listening is, and how important it is to listen with your entire body. You can tell so much of a story with stillness, and a lot of that can be from really actively listening to your scene partner.

I'd love to be in the '70s. I'd love to have a big, long wig parted down the middle with flat-ironed hair and bell-bottoms. They're actually very flattering for my figure. The wider the leg, the better for a person with a booty.

All of my friends went to college and I got a job at Circle Pizza, where I worked for 24 hours. I had to call my mother four times to ask her how to spell Parmesan. I'm not kidding. I was a terrible speller. I think I was really nervous that I somehow didn't feel right out in the world in that way.

The idea of being on a show where each season stands alone, and you can come back the next year and show an entirely different aspect of your personality or your talent or your anything is an enormous gift that you rarely get in television.

I think sometimes when you can feel the velocity of change, like nowadays, you really need a seat belt. It's almost like having a growth spurt that you can feel, like a 16-year-old who woke up one day and grew four inches literally overnight. That can be a painful thing sometimes.