It was in England that I discovered theatre. I didn't have any money, but I would just eat yoghurt in order to get some money for tickets.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Where I came from, people couldn't afford to go to the theatre.
It wasn't until I went to college that I met the theatre people and began to admire them because they were learning a trade that was guaranteed to make money!
Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts.
I remember, after graduating high school, I got a part in a play with the Washington Shakespeare Festival - a little part. But I remember thinking this would be a great way of making a living... to be an actor. I never really thought I'd make a lot of money at it.
I would have started the National Actors Theatre 30 years earlier.
If I only did theatre I would have had to waitress, and I didn't want to waitress.
For me, it's all I've wanted to do. I did local plays and productions, local theater groups and anything that involved it. And then, I went and studied it, attended drama school and got my first lucky break in the theater in London, and just went from there.
I went to a lot of theatre. My parents were very involved with the performing arts. I went to nightclub shows when I was a little girl. We went to Florida and we would go to the Cocoanut Grove down there. We'd go see Lena Horne, Jimmy Durante, Sophie Tucker and Judy Garland.
I started out doing theater in New York. I used to go to Shakespeare in the Park a lot.
I had spent time in New York, where I loved the idea that theater could be done up in tiny little rooms rather than for lots of money on a big stage, and be tied to ordinary life.