I'm a proud New Zealander, and I represent Paralympics New Zealand. I love what I do, and I do it because I love it. The passion is unbelievable in every race I do. I have the ambition to change things outside the pool, too.

I race six events. I specialise in butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, and it's not impossible, but it is hard to be able to race every single race, and day after day as well.

It makes you feel like the pool is yours when you have your family there. You walk up to them and see them crying... and you know they are proud of you.

I don't really take into account what the media says. People have their own opinions about what goes on, but they don't see what goes on behind the scenes with an athlete and their preparation.

I went to drama school, where you learn to clown around a bit. You're walking around in leotards every day for three years, and you're taught clowning and mask work.

I got into acting because my teachers kept nudging me into it. The power a teacher has to influence someone is so great. I can't think of a profession I have more respect for.

We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed.

Growing up in Los Angeles, obviously it's a really fashionable city, but it has a really relaxed quality to it as well. So, my fashion education came while working on 'Suits'.