I live in Los Angeles where there is not that much in the way of theatre, so the La Jolla Playhouse is pretty much the only place that is on my radar, and when they have something going on, and I am available, I will certainly go in.
Apparently, my mother still thought I had too much energy so she signed me up for a local theatre group, marking the beginning of my career.
My mother was a leading lady in a local theatre in Birmingham, Alabama, where I grew up.
I was mad about the theatre growing up, really mad. We had a local theatre, the Torch, and I used to usher there. I would see the shows over and over again.
The mistake people that want to be actors make is to move to New York or L.A. right away. But it's like... go act somewhere first. Be an actor. A story is a story, and an audience is an audience, no matter where you're doing it.
I wouldn't just come home from school and watch TV everyday, they had me involved in lots of local theatre. I was a very dramatic, talkative child. And that was part of my mother's creative solution - to put me in workshops and classes and children's theatre programmes.
I've always liked the idea of regularly doing a play but I was offered things which I felt were too 'celebie' and West Endy.
I always kind of dreamed locally - I never really ever dream that I would be south of the border; I dreamed about being a theatre star in Toronto, and maybe I'd do Stratford and regional stuff. I always thought it would be a slow growth.
During the war, my mother used to take me to the local repertory theatre on a Monday night, and we used to get two seats for the price of one, for nine pence, in the gods.
I go to a lot of plays. I tend to prefer the off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway more than the Broadway shows. That's where I see people that I might not know.
If you want to act, do school plays. If they're not there, create them, and the same with local repertory. They are the grounding for a lot of people. Make it happen.
There was no professional theater in Cork, but still I did a lot of performing.
I live in Derry, a little town in Ireland, and I don't have the background of Hollywood or Broadway.
