I enjoy learning about different periods and people, and then taking what's universal about the human condition and seeing where it matches up. No matter where you are, certain things unite everybody.

It is always good to explore the stuff you don't agree with, to try and understand a different lifestyle or foreign worldview. I like to be challenged in that way, and always end up learning something I didn't know.

I had learning disabilities, and I couldn't express myself in the written word.

If there's one thing that I've done on purpose it's to take whatever job, so long as it's interesting and challenging, whether it's theatre, radio, TV or film.

If you want to make money and have action, you need to work from like, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Those are the hours. That just doesn't fit with a lot of people's schedules. And that's just the start of it. You've got to realize what you are getting into.

My biggest break wasn't 'Rent;' it was the first job that ever paid me. I couldn't believe that they were paying me all that money to go around the country and do Shakespeare. I would have done it for free.

I should have known growing up and not having any money ever that I should have kept every dollar that I had.

I started Verite on savings from three years working at Applebee's in Times Square. I was a ridiculously good waitress. I was making more money than my brother, who worked at a start-up.