My mother never criticized any idea I had. She thought anybody could have anything. Even if I was in a poor family that worked at Ford Motor Company and lived in Dagenham. I could have told my mother that I wanted to work in pantomime. And she'd have said, "Great. I can help you."

Actors are the neediest people you're ever going to meet. And their relationship to real life, tenuous though it is because of all the wranglers, the money, everyone throwing everything at them every day of their lives -I think they're pretty much who they were before.

The Clash, in particular, transcends any category.

The first time I learned I could sell myself was when I convinced a wealthy American family to give me a job as a nanny. Childcare. Totally unqualified. But I learned to be ready for anything. And that I can adapt. That I can become the best diaper changer.

Do I believe the execution will work out? Les Moonves said yes to Survivor based partly upon my show Eco-Challenge. He liked my way of filming outdoors. It was the first use of helicopters on a documentary with the gyro-stabilized lenses. And a certain beauty of filming, allowing the drops to fall from a leaf into a puddle, allowing a spider to weave a web. Taking the breath to allow that to happen rather than showing scene after scene.

One of the wonderful things about Portlandia - and I'm not just blowing smoke, although I can blow smoke, but I'm not - is that there is an expansive feeling to each segment. It's not reductive. It doesn't seem like sketch comedy.

I'm consciously working very hard at not eating.