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I was so focused at 21, maybe to my own detriment because I didn't allow myself to have fun. I was constantly looking for the next audition and working to pay the bills.

I had some years of definite frustration. Auditioning and not working as much as I would have liked to, or working and being paid a pittance, and sort of scrounging by in New York and sleeping on a chair that folded out into a bed.

Sometimes I think I missed out on things like travelling. I'd have been terrified of missing an audition. I didn't start a family because that's not something I take lightly. Acting meant so much to me.

My parents were reluctant to let me start auditioning until I was at least a little bit emotionally stable - I'm still working on that! And so I started when I was fifteen, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me in terms of being able to focus my crazy teenage energy into something good.

In my twenties, I was a bit of a worrier; it bothered me what people thought of me, what job I was doing.

I remember being unemployed and walking the East Village streets for many years, constantly checking my voice mail on pay phones, hoping for an audition.

My parents spent 16 years hauling my butt to L.A. for audition after audition. I remember always hoping I could help take care of them because they took such good care of me.

I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, and they were getting ready for a life of unemployment, so they're just happy I'm in work!

As I got older, I auditioned for drama school and shocked myself by getting in.

I imagine I was supposed to become a lawyer or something. But this was the Depression; the lawyers I saw were all driving cabs. So I thought, 'Well, if I'm going to be badly off anyway, I might as well be badly off in the theater, where you get used to it.'