I tend to follow a scattershot approach to reading a lot of very diverse subjects interest me, and I'm quite happy to read stuff on any of them.
I found out a lot of stuff through MTV, and I didn't even have cable, I just saw it at friends' houses. But my culture in junior high was totally influenced by it.
That melting pot stuff was always more about what this country wanted to believe about itself than the way people really felt.
I'm not really that bothered by appearance. I know a few players who go off doing stuff in the mirror ages before they go out to play a game, but I'm not really interested in that.
After high school, I went to VCU and got a B.F.A. in theater. I got to do a bunch of stuff professionally throughout college. I actually got my SAG card in college.
If you want to be an actor, you should just get out there and do it. I don't go for the approach of first getting photos and an agent. I think you should start with the work, and the other stuff will follow. As with 'opportunity knocks,' you have to ...
On 'Angel' I got to work a lot with Mike Massa, who was David Boreanaz' stunt double, and Mike would let me do most of my stuff by myself. I did almost all my fight scenes by myself.
I had done some commercial work in junior high and stuff - my mother would bring me into the city, and we'd go on these crazy castings. Acting was something I always dreamed of doing... it was my passion when I was young.
From what I've heard, Paris did a little bit more prep work as far as making bike lanes and all of that stuff. They really did it properly, which New York is getting to little by little.
I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.
We did 'Jack & Bobby' in the middle of the Kerry/Bush election. It hurt it a little bit. No matter what we did, everyone thought we were advocating for one person over the other. The stuff I work on is more about the people.
So, did I work with Warhol? I worked with him less on that play then I did on other things. He actually did a portrait of my rabbit and some other stuff. Warhol was definitely... Warhol.
I have rituals for cleaning out resentments, disappointments, heartbreak, depression and for work. One of the things I do is go over old stuff if I have been unable to write for a while.
To me, celebrity doesn't mean a whole lot unless you're willing to use it. So I wanted to use it in a different way, with my AIDS work, the human rights stuff for the gay and lesbian community and the speaking I do.
Personally as an actress, when I work on something, that's it and then I move onto the next thing. I'm not someone who sits and watches my stuff. I like to go onto the next thing that I'm working on, and the thing that's been completed is completed.
I always thought I'd go to university and then get a real job, you know. Now I want to do stuff that really makes me happy. Although I'm still trying to work out what that is. But for me there are always constants.
I always put dance stuff out because you have to work, man. You have to eat. You have to compromise sometimes to make it. I had to make sacrifices, and I had to raise my children.
I got my training here in Chicago at the Goodman School Of Drama, and a lot of my personal work is usually internal work and stuff. Everything else that goes on is icing on the cake - your wardrobe, your makeup, whatever else you have to do.
It's just impossible to ignore the activists in your party. These are the people who stuff the envelopes, and walk the precincts, and make the telephone calls, and do all the so-called grunt work that brings about a successful campaign.
I believe I'm doing the right thing in trying to step away from that and to take chances and work on little independent films and do stuff like that wild dance scene.
It took about six years to get the Black Lung stuff. It didn't come just instantly. Sometimes, I see lobby groups, today, upset because they work the whole session and nothing happens.
