I took a lot of time off after Mobsters and although I did something I had never done before, which was to direct a play, The Laughter Epidemic, it felt like a vacation.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had really wanted adventure. At the time that I ran away, lots of kids ran away from home. It was something of a social phenomenon.
A couple of weeks after the Olympics, I thought I'd pop down to my local supermarket and do some grocery shopping. One person came up to me in the frozen food aisle, and that was it. I was mobbed, and I had to leave my shopping. Now, I either shop online or go very late at night when the supermarket's nearly empty.
I've done a reasonable amount of travelling, which I enjoyed, but not for too long at a time.
Well, I took a sabbatical. I walked away from shooting movies because I couldn't handle the travel. I'm a single parent. I had young kids, and I found that keeping in touch with them from hotel rooms and airports wasn't working for me. So I stopped.
After my tour I had time to stay at home, be with my boyfriend and hang out with friends and that brought me down to earth and helped me write music from a more relaxed place.
I was homeless for a little bit. I was on people's couches, but it was an amazing journey. I got to make people laugh all the way.
We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.
I had spent many days hungry; had slept on railway stations at times because I did not have money to pay for a hotel room... there were moments when I felt I had compromised my dignity as a human being and as an actor.
Once I was gone for a month and I was just miserable, so I flew back from Florida for two hours just to be home and see my cats.
I had gone to a talent show - I was interested in American hip-hop music - with my older brother, to another town, and my town was attacked. I went from having an entire family to the next minute not having anything. It was very painful.