I never saw myself as being a cop on TV. I come from theatre, and I always go back every couple of years.
I was more used to acting onstage, for a long time. I don't know, maybe I was temperamentally more suited to stage stuff. And there are things about the stage that I miss in a lot of ways.
When I was training before I was even signed, I was listening to the Damian Marley CD 'Welcome to Jamrock,' and I got the idea one day in promo class to cut a promo in a Jamaican accent and everybody in the class went wild. That was the character I played from that point on and it kind of stuck until it didn't.
It takes a lot of time to write and put up a sketch show, but that's part of who I am. I don't think that ever goes away, that sensibility - especially coming from the Upright Citizens Brigade. That's just who I am.
The foundation for film acting is stage acting.
I'd always wanted to act - since I starred in 'Alice in Wonderland' as a girl, that was it.
As an actress, I think it's important to look back and realize that we aren't always quite as original as we think we are. There's this grand, textured history for us over the last 100 years of incredible writers, directors, and performers.
Before I did any television or film, I did years and years of theater. Television and film stuff, even though it went on for a good, healthy number of years, almost felt like a diversion from theater.
My first professional job was with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. I started out in an educational touring play and eventually starred on their stages. That was the theatre that nurtured me to expand as an artist.
I wouldn't be the same actor if I couldn't do theater.
My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.
Well, being from Mississippi, the church house is kind of the common denominator. It was for me growing up. Like so many public performers, that was the first place I was ever invited to sing.
I have that working-class show-business blood coursing through my veins.
I feel like my early experiences of acting, and I think a lot of other actors' too, are probably at camp or school plays where you get to have great range. At camp, I remember getting to play a 50-year-old man.
I come from the stage, so I started in New York, lived there for eleven years.
My roots are on the live performing stage, so while I enjoy making films and the other things that I do, when I get on stage, I feel at home; I'm comfortable.
I never really acted at school. It was doing small parts on TV that really got me started.
I'm a stage actor. You know, I was - I cut my teeth on stage, you know. So I've always had a love affair with the stage, first off, what I was raised in, you know.
I had always seen myself doing theatre, as I don't come from an acting background, so that was my first way into acting, I suppose.
There are always parts of me that come out in the characters that I play - it's the only thing I have to work with and to draw off of.
I grew up doing stage work as a child and as a teenager, so the stage is my home where I feel most comfortable.
