I didn't know I wanted to act until it was around 21. I had just come back to Los Angeles after two and half years of traveling and working as a dancer and singer and was looking for a new performing art to study. I started taking acting classes and fell in love.
After I finished school I wanted to do a bunch of courses - art history in Florence, fashion in London and acting in Los Angeles. So I started with acting, and soon I knew this is it, this is what I need to do.
I always wanted to be a zookeeper when I was growing up, and I've wound up a zookeeper! I've been working with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years! I'm the luckiest old broad on two feet because my life is divided absolutely in half - half animals and half show business. You can't ask for better than two things you love the most.
Twenty-five years is a long time for a girl to live out of a trunk, and after looking over a few houses, I fell in love with one in Southwest Los Angeles.
I started taking classes and doing things that I had always wanted to do but couldn't because I was working. I signed up for a bunch of workout classes, and to my surprise, I realized I was enjoying it. Because I was working out so much, I started looking for more workout clothes and found a lot of redundancy - predictability that was uninspired. That's when I decided to start my own line.
I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting.
I've always wanted to sing and to be an entertainer. After high school, I moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles and started songwriting. But I didn't really get serious until then.
I think... I love Los Angeles. I live in New York, and I love New York as well, but I think Los Angeles is a place where if you have the right person with you, there are all these little worlds that you would never guess by just looking at the exterior of what the city is.
I started working on stage as a dancer when I was four; by 14 or 15, I knew I wanted to study the craft of acting.
We were living in California, and it just wasn't conducive for the lifestyle that we wanted with kids. Los Angeles is tricky to get around, there's paparazzi to deal with, and I had this feeling that I just wanted to move back to Australia.
I've actually done three pilots for Disney. I met with the network when I was 16 years old and had just started acting. I would fly to Los Angeles to film pilots, then fly back to Dallas, where I grew up.
I grew up always wanting to be a dancer, and when I went to New York, I fell in love with the idea of performing in all ways. I saw myself traveling with a company or making my own work and being a little weird. I wasn't thinking about the business side of anything; I just knew that I loved dancing.
I always wanted to be a film-maker when I was younger, not an actor. I was an eight-year-old who dreamed of being a writer on 'The Simpsons,' which was a weird dream to have. But I started taking acting classes as a way to learn how to direct actors and I sort of fell in love with it.
I was playing a singer-songwriter, so I started writing, and I started going up to different places around Los Angeles and reading poetry of my own, which terrified me, but I had to do it. I picked up a guitar and started learning guitar.
When I first started [taking acting classes] I sort of stuck my toes in but I was so nervous I didn't know if I could go all the way. I was so scared about it for some reason. The more confident I got with it, the more I just fell in love with it. I love going to work every day and trying to make the most of the stuff I've been given.
I always wanted to be a singer, and so, when I was 5 years old, I started acting classes so I could be a better performer. I wanted to have a powerful voice so I could be heard.
You can get stuff done in New York that you can't in Los Angeles. If you wanted to get some milk and get your shoes repaired and drop something off at the dry cleaner, that's an all-day adventure in Los Angeles. In New York, you can bang that out in half an hour.