Growing up, I didn't come from a musical family. Neither of my parents played an instrument, sang out loud, or listened to the radio with frequency. The record collection in the living room was only about 2 feet long - and that included 4 solid inches of Neil Diamond and Herb Alpert.

In 1989, I had a fellowship to teach for Yale in China for two years. I came back from California to New Haven to spend the summer learning Chinese, but because of Tiananmen Square, Yale cancelled the program.

Strangely enough, my favorite airport is Logan Airport in Boston - but largely for sentimental reasons. My first real summer job was working as a journeyman for the airport's resident maintenance crew - a small army of union electricians, plumbers, and carpenters.

As a youth, I always did a good deal of reading in the summer months, having suffered since birth from an allergy to athletic activity.

I directed my first music video for Sara Bareilles. I like writing and directing. I co-wrote '21 Jump Street' and I'm in that. To me, they all inform the other one. I think writing makes you a better actor, acting makes you a better writer, directing makes you better at both. To me, I'm just trying to learn as much as possible.

The Architect is just one of a series of works which examine the confrontation of innocence and experience, illustrating the complex ethics of power that exist between reader and writer, critic and artist, the human and the divine.

I definitely want my career to continue to branch out. I've had the pleasure of working in different areas of entertainment, from being in the music business as a teenager in a girl group to doing Broadway for three years in 'Hairspray,' and also doing TV and film.

People won't stop painting, just as they won't stop making music or dancing. This is a facility we have. Children don't stop doing it or having it. On the other hand, it seems we don't need painting anymore. Culture is more interested in entertaining people.