One of the ways I think I gain fodder for characters is by watching people.
As a single mom, I’m juggling a lot and working long hours. Yes, it costs them a little, but what my children get in return is a mother who is energized and content.
The common misconception is that as an actress you have to learn what you’re doing. No, you just have to make the audience think you’ve learned it.
I think there was a time when I considered myself a work addict, but that’s no longer accurate. My life has changed so dramatically over the last number of years, especially having a family now. My priorities have shifted.
Is it harder having kids and working? It definitely is, but the payoff is you get to go home to your kids, and it all balances out. And I know I’m a better mother when I’m engaged in something outside of the house.
It’s a very complicated issue, this fame thing – I was not really cut out for it. There are some really fantastic things about it, but it’s difficult for a private person like myself.
My kids have never seen me scream at anybody. They’ve never seen an argument. There’s never been even a cold silence. And those are things that I grew up with because my parents did end up divorcing.
The high-grossing films are not all that interesting to me, I have to say. It’s not stuff I would want to be in. Yes, you would want the big paycheck, but that’s never really been my concern.
Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there’s tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It’s tremendously important.
I have lots of friends and, like me, they’re not married. So my kids have lots of godparents – men and women, gay and straight. My loft is always filled with people helping me out with them and loving them.
I don’t know what it must be like to be a writer in general, but to be a comedy writer, it’s got to be something – it’s a very special kind of talent.
I think that you do get a little extra jolt of confidence when you win an Emmy.
I’m a very ritualistic, routine-oriented person, and I discovered over the years that I love working Monday through Friday.
I’m just not one of those people who thought having biological children was that important, to me it was more about wanting to raise a child.
I’ve never been all that interested or aware of what people are thinking about me or saying about me. I think that has kept me safest and sanest.
In my household there is an insane amount of laughter and celebration.
The world gets very small after a while, if you stick around long enough.
There’s a little good and bad in everyone. Everybody I’ve ever loved is very complicated.
Being a single mother was the right thing for me. But I have a tremendous amount of help from my friends. They’re in love with my kids, and my kids are in love with them.
I don’t have examples in my life of people who are all good or bad; I have deeply loved many people who are both, and I relate to those kinds of people on a far greater level.
There is no question that sobriety has made me a better actor, made me a better person.