We didn't have a lot of live theater in Oklahoma. I didn't visit New York when I was growing up. I watched movie musicals, and I believed in an idealistic, idyllic version of Broadway.

I've always wanted my characters to have more dimension and realistic cores than the ingenue material often provides. It's been a challenge.

In my special place, room service could only consist of my husband making me a breakfast of eggs, avocados, and hummus. And coffee with milk.

When I've done TV and film, when it's offered to me, I loved doing it, and I would do it again, but the ins and outs of auditioning is - that's time away from my kids.

At home, my mom and my dad shared equally in the responsibilities of the family and our home and always demonstrated the importance of men and women having an equal role.

Everyone in my family sang, and we would always sing these songs.

Let's just say my phone blew up when I came out on global television. The only people that knew were my immediate family members and my closest friends, maybe like three of them. So you can imagine how many texts and emails and Facebook messages that I got after coming out, most of which were very supportive from the LGBT community.

My father was a painter and he taught art. He once said to me, 'I never knew an Indian child who could not draw.'