In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the eight hours when we stop killing each other and gratuitous overeating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!
It's hard and sometimes it's scary. It still amazes my mother. I went home for Christmas one year and there were fans all over the front lawn, hoping to see me.
I watched a lot of movies when I was younger and I remember, when I was seven years old, I asked my parents if I could have an agent for Christmas.
I was once part of a Christmas cabaret. I sang 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.' I tap-danced. I had a ten-gallon hat. It was quite absurd.
So when I was 13, I basically left home and never returned and lived at home again. I would come home for a week at Christmas and two weeks in the summer only.
For Christmas I do gift bags for my friends and the cast, and I put 'treat yo self' key chains in there. And people send me pictures of 'treat yo self' all the time.
I've been playing on Christmas for the last 10, 11, 12 years. So just got to get up early with the babies, and give them their toys and try to get a nap in and just come to play.
Classic Christmas cookies are really time-consuming. Instead, make a bar you can bake in a pan and just cut up, like a brownie or a blondie or a shortbread, which still has that Christmas vibe.
I originally wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to be Kylie Minogue. My dad thought that was a very silly ambition and introduced me to drama classes. Once I became fixated on that, there was no stopping me.
My mother wanted to name me Jackie or Jacqueline but she got to name my sister and my brother, so my dad and my brother insisted on naming me. And they were big fans of 'The Little Mermaid.'
When you get pure joy out of 'being' rather than 'doing' or 'seeing', that's when you realize how big and unexplainable some things are and being a dad is one of those very few things.
My grandfather and dad worked at General American Transportation Corp. in Chicago, a company that made tank cars and freight cars. We had a pragmatic, Republican, manufacturing, Illinois consciousness as far as employment went.
When my father died in my arms it had such a profound affect on me that at that very moment when my dad passed I realized that I needed to face my own fears.
I have to say that my dad's face is very malleable. He's barely got any cartilage in his face. I think I maybe inherited that Play-Doh-like physicality from him.
My dad was a labourer and my mum had exactly the same job as Noel Gallagher's mum - she was a dinner lady at our local school. Everyone comes over from Ireland and they get the same jobs.
When I was a kid, I wanted to walk with my dad's limp - my dad was my hero - but that infuriated him, and he would make me walk back and forth in the living room until I walked without it.
I was very protected growing up. My dad was very strict with me. I was the oldest of four kids, and there are three girls. So I kind of paved the way of what it was like to raise a teenage daughter.
When I was a teenager, my dad used to put a lot of pressure on me to be successful, and I'd really beat myself up about things like losing martial arts competitions.
My dad had been an actor... not only had my dad been an actor, but his dad had been an actor, and my great-grandfather had been an actor. And who knows before then?
My dad grew up in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, desperate to get to London. I grew up in London, so I don't know what it's like to yearn for the big city from a small town.
When I grew up, my dad always used to watch 'Star Trek' and any and every sci-fi show you could imagine. I used to watch it with him, and I loved it.
