Do I observe holy days and holidays? Yeah, the ritual is very important to me. It's part of being Ukrainian Catholic. So every holy day we're baking pierogis and not eating meat.

Whether we call it religion or faith, we all battle for a balanced integrated soul.

I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The experience of giving birth itself made me feel more womanly.

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.

Whenever I wore it there were some questions whether the outfit was just too over the top. I'm like, "Do you know who you're dealing with here, and her eccentricities, her style, her flair?" These little things were sometimes those - I love it. I love having a real-life model. But I also do flush it out with my own personal experiences and my own essence, and hopefully they mesh together.

The biggest research of all when I do a character is self-examination. You look at yourself and you ask, 'How am I similar to this person and how am I different?'