Prejudice and discrimination have always been a big part of my life. When I was 6, I got beat up and called dirty Jew boy because they thought I looked Jewish.
I would say I was jock. I went to Sierra College. I was a big baseball player. Getting into the MLB was my dream - to become a left-handed pitcher for the Yankees. That's what I was hoping, but life kind of went the other way.
I'm a big believer in personal responsibility. My life wasn't always peaches and roses. Where I am today is through a belief in hard work and never saying no.
'Crucible' was going to be a 'passing of the torch' story. So something that was big enough to be worthy of that, that could show these characters being changed - along with their respective outlooks about life, the galaxy, and the Force - was Mortis...
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.
My life is quite physical anyway. When you are three-foot-six you kind of have to climb stuff now and again, and you find yourself in quite precarious situations just to manage in what is quite a big world.
All women, and men of color - we were owned like tables and chairs. We spent a hundred years getting a legal identity as human beings. That's a big thing.
If you see how carefully I prepare for any kind of walk, legal or illegal, small or big, you will see that, actually, I narrow the unknown to virtually nothing. And that's when I am ready to walk on the wire.
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
Big stuff and little: learning how to order breakfast in a country where I don't speak the language and haven't been before - that's really satisfying to me. I like that.
When Evanescence took time off, I bought a big concert harp and started taking lessons like I was in high school again, which was really, really fun. I felt like I was learning again.
Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.
It's a big theme in my life, learning about myself and being a better person. I'm a work in progress; I have revelations every day.
I kind of love going to weddings - it's a guilty pleasure. I've never been the wedding-y type girl dreaming about the big day, the dress, but I always cry. Always. Even if I don't know the bride that well, I'm verklempt!
I've got to be honest and say that, growing up, I wasn't a big sports guy, but I love the camaraderie. I just love people getting together, fighting for a team and getting super-emotional about it.
It's a music video but she was real specific on the character that Mary J. Blige was playing, and that I was playing in this video and I told her whenever you get to jump to the big screen I'd love to come with you and she honored that.
I went through my first big breakup, with a boyfriend who I had been with for more than two years. He had been one of my dancers, and it was my first love and his.
And being as I'm somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.
I like big shows, a lot of volume and a lot of energy. I love electric instruments. But I do love mixing those with bluegrass instruments and cranking those up, too, with a little bit of that rock energy.
Ever since I was a little kid, I always dreamed of being a Big City kid, because I grew up in a very small town up north in Canada. I have to say I just love the city lights at night.
I have a cottage near Aldeburgh, and from there it's a sturdy two-mile walk across farmland to an empty beach, where I collect hag stones and run around with the dog. I'm a keen walker, and I love Suffolk's big skies.
