So I majored in Drama, did all the plays that were possible to do, skated through school in order to be in every production on stage or backstage in whatever capacity and I came to New York looking for work in the summers.
There are a whole bunch of roles where people say, 'Oh, you're playing yourself.' I guess it's kind of a compliment. Or people say, 'Oh, man, you just roll out of bed and do that.' The work is to make it look effortless. That's the hard part.
I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work.
I was happy she got it and I have to sort of - and one of the reasons I did Third Watch is because I wanted to break that thing of just being the pretty girl and play it down and let it be about the work.
I think novelists should be disciplined and self-imposed working hours. I work a lot, but I don't feel that I'm working. I always feel that there is a child in me, healthy, and I'm playing.
In my game, you get brokenhearted a bit. You do a play, get a bad review in the papers... actors are sensitive; you think of all the work you've done, and it breaks your heart, but you learn to shrug it off and to carry on.
I don't really listen to my work. If I have to DJ and I play something, I hear it. But I don't sit quietly and listen to my work; I'm always off to do the next thing.
I don't feel that any kind of narrow stereotypes are representative of the work I've done, nor the range of the audience that work has found. I've played lots of different roles, and they've connected with lots of different people.
People see my body and ask me what I do to work out. I play a lot of basketball, so I'm constantly dribbling and running up the court. I take a basketball with me everywhere I go!
If it's not in New York, let's say it's in St. Louis, then they've got to find a place or get with someone who knows about the work... they've got to find a place like that and do scenes, and then try to get in plays.
I can get a better role in TV and work more constantly than I can waiting around for my friends in Canada to call me every four years - which they do - and I go up there and play a leading role.
It used to be that in comedy you had to play the clubs and work your way up, but now, before you do the clubs, you can put something up on the Internet. It's public access times a million.
If the audience is made to do not enough work, they resent it without knowing it. Too much and they get lost. There's a perfect pace to be found. And a perfect place that is different for every line of the play.
I started to work in television for three or four years, in 1954. There was one channel of television, black and white. But it could be entertaining and educational. During the evening they showed important plays, opera or Shakespeare's tragedies.
I think women have long been defined by their roles as procreators and wives, and we're expected to serve, take care of, say 'Yes,' and not ruffle any feathers. Women, in particular, are sometimes not allowed to consider who they are outside of the r...
I don't like the idea of playing a one-dimensional character who is just fearless, strong, and killer and has instincts and just thrives in dangerous circumstances - that's really boring to me, and I don't think it represents what most women feel ins...
When I started to sing, my mother would have me engaged to perform at the Women's Christian Temperance Union national or annual meetings. I would hate doing this because I wanted to play baseball or go off skiing.
There are days when I think the National Endowment for the Arts should issue a quota system for the production of plays by women - especially when you realize women buy 70 percent of all theater tickets.
There are expectations in how you play your character as a black woman, to be sassy and the same kind of feel, as if there are no quirky black women. I struggle with those things constantly, trying to add dimension to my work, and that's the goal, to...
I'm a tomboy now. I always wanted to fit in with my brother's group, so I climbed trees and played with lead soldiers. But I'm a woman's woman. I never understood women who don't have woman friends.
Middle-aged women on telly is a bit of a hot topic - before, we were 27 to 37, and now we're 40 to 50. You do notice as you get older... you go past 35, and suddenly you're playing baddies.
