I looked at the job of piano accompanist. It's a selfless position and generally they are odd people, according to opera singers I talked to. Just like everybody else, they want more from their life, but now their job is to make others shine.

There are bits at the table read that destroy, so much so that we can't wait to do it in taping. And then, no reaction. And then there are times when I can't get the right read on a line in rehearsal, and then the audience howls at it. The strange thing is I still don't know why it happens like that. It's not like afterwards I think, 'Now I know why that worked!'

There's no real escape from the work, but in some ways, if you're as obsessive as I am, it's a sweet little thing we've figured out. You bring your work home and you work 24 hours a day, but it's good.

It's not really about confidence. It's just something that isn't really in the vocabulary of what goes on at work. The writers write and the actors act.

Well, I think that everybody is kind of a nerd at heart.

I was young. I was 23 or 24. I just wasn't a fan of the politics of campaigning - of going into that environment and competing and trying to get into the good graces of the writers.

What I wanted to do was music, until I was about 16. But it was jazz and rock, never classical music.