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I definitely feel Russian. I feel Russian, but at the same time when I'm in the States I feel at home, too.

It feels very good to sing in Russian. It feels so good inside my body.

There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior.

I'm actually embarrassed to tell people I'm Russian these days, because it's become such an awful place.

My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.

Of course, everyone knows my story of being born in Russia and moving to the United States at 7. For a few years people would say, 'Well, she's living in the United States, but she's Russian.'

I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

I was born in Eastern Europe, in Latvia, and I'm fluent in Russian.

It's funny because I'm so used to acting in English that any time I have these moments where I have to speak Russian, it definitely takes a different part of my brain to pull it off, but it's always nice and fun.