Now I worry. If people ended up liking me, did I do the job wrong? So I decided they didn't end up liking me - they ended up being able to deal with me.
I can remember as a college student writing stories and novels, some of which ended up getting published and some that didn't. It was like my head was going to burst - there were so many things I wanted to write all at once. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to come out.
It's challenging to live in Anacortes. I lived in Olympia for five years, went on tour for a year, ended up in Norway for a winter, and ended up back in Anacortes. But I have a long life ahead of me. I'll probably live in many different places, and then die in Anacortes.
I think there's so much to play in adolescence; there's so many conflicting things happening and so many changes, and there's just a lot of good stuff to play there as an actor.
I have so many different role models who have taught me so many different things at so many different points in my life, it doesn't feel like I have one person that I have to live up to.
I think growing up in the States and Australia, we were exposed to a lot of different types of things. I used to go to Gilman to watch punk shows, and it's a complete different environment - you were inspired by so many different things, whereas in Hong Kong, there is nothing for anybody.
Roxanne came along in '86, when I was doing a lot of stand-up. I auditioned for the movie, and of course I was a huge Steve Martin fan, so I really hoped I would get this part. I don't think there was any part in particular that I auditioned for. I just went in and talked with them. There were so many parts in there, and so many comedians ended up getting in that movie, playing different firemen and townspeople.
I think the gay community is made up of so many little different things, different parts, different people... I think that can be quite hard for people. You think you've found your tribe, but actually, that isn't your tribe, and then you have to keep searching for what kind of makes sense.
We're told all the time to give up everything for love. That's the Western notion of what love is - love conquers all, all you need is love. And there are so many different kinds of outside, conflicting pressures on women.
Not only are there as many conflicting truths as there are people to claim them; there are equally multitudinous and conflicting truths within the individual.
Emile Zola was a poor student at his school at Aix. We are all so different largely because we all have different combinations of intelligences. If we recognize this, I think we will have at least a better chance of dealing appropriately with many problems that we face in the world.
What I wound up doing, which I think is really journalistically dubious, is changing the order of some of the things I did, so that the things I ended up struggling with the most wind up being two-thirds of the way in.
Interestingly, when you do films, sometimes you have conscious reasons, things that you were looking for, or stuff that you were trying to do. And then, you see the film and you think, "Wow, it ended up being something totally different!"
I ended up getting to do a lot of student films - no budget: somebody just wrangled up a camera and went to shoot stuff - and it was fun. It was great.
I think, from a really early age, I just wanted to be an actress. And I ended up doing comedy because it was the thing that kind of, like, came out of my nature the most easily. But, I've always wanted to do as many different kinds of performances - whatever I could.
Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only sissies liked girls? What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's changed. You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow out of it. We just grow horny. That's the problem. We mix up liking pussy for liking girls. Believe me, one couldn't have less to do with the other.