I was very dramatic - very, like, 'It's never going to happen. My life is over at 16 because I'm not already famous. I'm not going to get my record deal. I'm not going to be able to sing for a living.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
From the time I was 16 to really up until turning 21, the roles were really, really few and far between. I had people say that I just wasn't a good singer. They didn't know what to do with me; I would never fit in any markets. I almost quit acting altogether.
As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.
I didn't know I was gonna act. I thought I was gonna be a singer because that's what I did first, and I was like, 'When I grow up, I want to be, you know, a singer.'
When I was a teenager, I had a record company after me. They wanted me to be a pop act. They said they wanted me to be the next Sonia. I was 16 at the time. I said, 'No thank you.'
If you think back to your time as a teenager, everything was dramatic.
I don't think there was ever a moment when I was like, 'Yeah, I want to be a singer!' I guess it just happened. I performed a lot when I was younger and stuff, but I remember getting to the point where I thought I might have to get a normal job.
At one point in my 20s, I was about to quit acting. I'd had a crappy couple of years and I was depressed. My mom said, 'Don't give up! You'll be so mad at yourself.'
I wasn't like, 'I want to be famous.' I just wanted to be an actor. I wasn't chasing anything. I was never stressed or worried. I never had any fear of rejection or not making it, anything like that.
I was suddenly really famous, and I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know myself well enough as a person, number one, and as an actor, number two. I wanted to escape.
It wasn't not being famous any more, or even not being a recording artist. It was having nobody who needed me, no phones ringing, nothing to do. Because I'm still too young to do nothing. I was only 24 when all that happened. Now, at 40, I feel I've got more to give than I ever have.