I didn't have any qualifications when I left school - I had three O-levels.
I was probably not the first to lose my virginity among my friends. I was definitely one of the last ones to reach puberty - I didn't grow until the last couple years of high school.
I still am in touch with several friends from high school. I don't go to reunions much. I'm afraid that if I go back to the school, they'll suddenly go, 'You know what? We've checked the records and you still have one more French class. Get back in here.'
I actually think the reason I am interested in certain parts is because I was such a dweeb in high school. When you are such a loser, it's a helpful way in to a lot of characters because even very powerful people are not all that powerful really. They all had a high school. That vulnerability is completely permanent and, as an actor, it's a good thing.
I was discouraged at drama school, along with most of my peers.
When I went to Yale, I thought it would be like in Stenford 24 hours a day. Robert Brustein, former dean of the Yale School of Drama and founder of the Yale Repertory Theater was there, and we did all this very serious - I would go so far as to say completely humorless - Eastern European drama, as well as August Strindberg, and Henrik Ibsen, we weren't allowed to do William Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill. I was not in the right place.
Art school is a very difficult thing to run in a generous, humane way, because academic power is somehow very corrupting.
I was at an all-girls' school, so there were a lot of us who were really awkward. I was this tall when I was 11, so I was really awkward and self-conscious. No one would really have wanted to be mean to me. I was too unimportant.
I wouldn't recommend it, because art school is a funny business. Yes, if you can find a situation where they'll give you money to live at the school and do whatever you want and pay for all your materials, if you're a painter or maybe a filmmaker, do it. But acting should be the most fun thing in the world; you're surrounded by other people who are as obsessed with Anton Chekhov as you are.
I went to an all-girls boarding school for most of my youth. We used to do stupid, fun girly things like pull tights over our faces and streak through the lacrosse pitch. And once I snogged the gardener.
By the time I reached high school my father's grocery store had made our life adequately comfortable and I was able to choose, without any practical encumbrances, the subjects that I wanted to pursue in college.
The traditional farm, the peanuts, the cotton, the corn, is probably not the thing to do, because you're up against big farmers who can afford all the equipment to grow those kinds of crops. But we need healthy food. We're being encouraged to eat more vegetables. Our school systems are being encouraged to buy locally. So, we need farmers who can produce that food.
I feel the same way I did when I was in school. I'm having the same insecurities.
Of course I'm schooled in the old school method: taking what I think the director wants, then reworking it through my own brain and heart.
It's such a stress always trying to get bigger houses and larger cars and better schools. Of course, parents want to give their children the best opportunities in life, but sometimes that can stifle them.
Growing up in Asia in a particular time period - the '50s and '60s - I attended a Catholic missionary school where I was taught by nuns and where consciousness of the body was repressed. Yet at the same time, the female body was a highly visible and sensitive site.
I gave a talk on gender stuff at Facebook one morning and a man didn't come. It was optional; he didn't have to come. But he sent a note saying, "I missed your meeting because I drove my kids to school so my wife could do something else. Thank you for making that possible." I think that employee is a loyal employee for Facebook and I think more companies should want that kind of loyalty.
There are moments of opportunity for families; moments they need to put technology away. These include: no phones or texting during meals. No phones or texting when parents pick up children at school - a child is looking to make eye contact with a parent!
We are all forever a work in progress. I mean, that is the truth. You are forever in your whole life a work in progress, and forever there is a 12-year-old that's driving in to work with you every day. And you are still on the school playground and you are still whatever it is in college or you are still wondering why someone didn't return your call or ask you out.
Good question. (Acheron) I have a better one. How are we going to clean up this mess? (Kyrian) Nah, mine’s even better. How do you hide a chainsaw in your locker at school? I’m thinking they’re not going to stop, and while the school has a strict no-weapons policy, I don’t think the plastic sporks in the cafeteria are going to do much to combat them. I need protection, man. Serious protection. (Nick)
I have hair that I audition with, my sitcom hair which is a curly wig. I have my long chic hair that I wear to my son's school so they know I'm not playing around. I always tell people that my husband gets a different woman every night when I come home from 'The View.' Hair makes you feel a certain way, like putting a power suit on.
I have a lot of people who are soap fans and they definitely know who I am, even if they call me by my character's name. I get a lot of people thinking maybe they know me from high school. My career has been a slow burn, a gradual rise, which I prefer since this is a marathon and not a sprint, so I kind of like where I am and where I'm going.
I loved it, but had to forget about acting after elementary school because it was the sort of thing you just didn't do in my rough neighborhood.
Every Indian kid has access to MySpace and Facebook. But that doesn't mean they have access to books and great teachers. This idea about bringing digital tech into schools is great, but once again I'll say that this is not how people actually learn.
My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.
