I had never really thought about acting as art. You know, growing up in Youngstown, the Rust Belt of the world, it was always just a form of entertainment. Finally seeing it as an art form, I fell in love with it. So I moved out to California, never having visited before.

I always live by the idea that my favorite job is my next one. It doesn't really matter what the content is.

My mentor Jon Simmons introduced me to the Stanislavski system, which is so heavy on back-story. So you write and write and write these back stories about a character and then you throw it away. So then on set, if it doesn't come, then you didn't do your work.

I just look at the character and the arc of the character, and see if it's going to be challenging. We always want to challenge ourselves. That's the biggest thing that I look at. Is this going to be a challenge? Is this going to be something that I can try my best to create, that no one could see anyone else do?

A strong mentor can help a young woman find and advance in the career of her dreams that otherwise may have seemed impossible.

Not to sound too pessimistic, but I just don't see me having the film career that I maybe hoped for after 'The Birdcage.' I think people just didn't know what to do with me.

I wasn't one of those kids who grew up wanting to write or who read a particular book and thought: 'I want to do that!' I always told stories and wrote them down, but I never thought writing was a career path, even though, clearly, someone was writing the books and newspapers and magazines.

I have a hard time being career-minded, but I want to be able to survive as an actor and do work that I think is important and that says something.