Your mind knows your pretending, but, in terms of the adrenaline and the fact that you are actually crying, and that you are that upset, and you are screaming, and you are simulating terror, your body does not know that it is not real. Your body feels really wrecked afterwards.

I do like the immediacy of audience's reaction. I like when I can hear the stillness and I know that they're with us.

I'm interested in telling the character's story, not my beliefs, political or otherwise.

I like the ritual of putting on my makeup, putting on my costume, doing my warm-ups. I eat the same dinner every night before I go on stage. I like having something that I can count on, something that feels stabilizing for me.

If I had my druthers, I would be working in all different mediums, forever.

If you heard me sing, you would just plug your ears and run, screaming, the other way. I promise.

When I look at my career, the bulk of it has been television, and I love working in television. But there's a speed at which you do it. You're doing seven to ten pages a day on a series, and it's hard to feel like you're doing the detail-oriented work that I like to do.