I was a youngster looking up to dudes like Vicky McClure, Joe Dempsie and Michael Socha - in fact, he was a big influence on how I was able to detach drama from the all-singing, all-dancing stigma.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was younger, acting, singing, and dancing was what it was all about.
I have mad love for the way we were taught and trained back in the day. I mean, those of us - like Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight - we didn't give into this new wave of celebrity.
I was at the radio station all the time and on the air all the time. I met John Travolta and a lot of the other big '70s icons. Shaun Cassidy sang 'Da Do Ron Ron' to me onstage. I thought I was a rock star; I had an all-access-pass childhood.
I played old men back in drama school. It's just now that I'm drawing level with the age of the characters I play, but I'm fine with that, and I've certainly never envied people who became hugely famous when they were young.
I was a little girl who grew up idolizing musical-theatre stars.
I grew up in a crazy, gypsy-like household of actors, dancers and loony Broadway people. It was their way of life, and I didn't know anything else.
When I was younger, I was one of the few girls in the neighborhood who could break dance. That's kind of my local, ghetto-celebrity claim to fame.
I did absolutely grow up in a world surrounded by people who were always performing and being flamboyant.
I've been fortunate. I've worked in a lot of things where I had those kinds of experiences with actors who were perceived as very macho guys, everybody from Lee Marvin to Charlie Bronson to Harrison Ford to Robert Shaw.
I was raised by two actors in a moment in time - the Seventies - when there was no judgment of characters, no heroes and bad guys.