You hope that your teenage self would like and forgive your 50-year-old self.

The first big stars, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, you know, these were gigantic stars. I even wonder sometimes whether all music actually comes from women, whether the first glimmering of music is a mother soothing a baby.

I am a coffee fanatic. Once you go to proper coffee, you can't go back. You cannot go back.

I think maybe even one of the reasons I became an actor was actually to hide. I mean, it sounds paradoxical because, of course, people are standing up in a public place and encouraging other people to look at them. So that's not the conventional definition of hiding.

My earliest memory is dreamlike: in a small orchard or garden I am carried on the arm, I believe, of my father; there was a group of grown-ups, my mother among them, and the group was slowly walking in the orchard, it seems toward the house.

My past was so amazing. It's that fine line of appreciating it and letting it go. I have my animal rescue, and I have my daughter and my family that helped me move forward.

The Daily Show' was like my family. We had dogs in the office every day, all day. It was just such a warm, beautiful, sweet experience for me. Choosing to leave the show was so hard because I really, really loved everybody there, and I loved what it gave me and the platform it gave me.

My family is not at all involved in television, or film, or theatre, or any of it, really.