I was brought up in an environment to believe that my opinion was important, that I had something to say, and that it was no less powerful because I was young, a girl, at the time really unattractive, definitely not the smartest kid in the class.
I like to be at a party and be a quiet observer, be in conversation. I wouldn't say I was a class clown growing up, but I would definitely sit back in class and take snipes at the teacher.
I didn't grow up with great privilege, nor did I grow up wanting for anything. I was a middle-class kid and, relative to the rest of the world, that's great wealth.
There are very few voices that can speak with any kind of authority or credibility on what happened back during the time when WCW and WWF were going head to head, and I think the audience is interested in that period of time, clearly. And like I said, nobody could speak to it quite the way I could.
Duke is in extremely competitive environment. In my high school, I think I got one B my whole four years. I was used to being the smartest kid in every class I was in, and then I went to Duke and suddenly I was the dumbest kid in every class. Everybody there is up to something.
Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud "snort" noises.) I don't know why parents don't do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you're a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won't have his friends hanging around your house all the time.
I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And I was. I was growing up middle-class in a time when growing up middle-class in America meant there would be jobs for my parents, good schools for me to prepare myself for a career, and, if I worked hard and played by the rules, a chance for me to do anything I wanted.
My whole career, only one person has stepped up to back me. All these people say they like your films. They say this and they say that, but no one actually does anything.
They sat on a bench and Sproule held his wounded arm to his chest and rocked back and forth and blinked in the sun. What do you want to do? said the kid. Get a drink of water. Other than that. I dont know. You want to try and head back? To Texas? I don't know where else. We'd never make it. Well you say. I aint got no say. He was coughing again. He held his chest with his good hand and sat as if he'd get his breath. What have you got, a cold? I got consumption. Consumption? He nodded. I come out here for my health.
When you grow up in a border area of Ireland, people are very wary and cagy and keep their head down at all times. Don't speak unless it's absolutely essential, and don't give anything away.
I tied down time with a rope
but it came back.
Then
I put my head in a death bowl
and my eyes shut up like clams.
They didn't come back.
I was the kind of kid, I'd sit in the back row of the class with my head practically under the desk. I was incredibly afraid of people and very shy.
I suppose half the time Shakespeare just shoved down anything that came into his head.
I remember playing hockey as a kid - I was goalie in gym class and I was pretty good at it. But basketball was my passion. As a kid I went to class, came back from school, did my homework and went straight across the street to practice.
In the second grade, I would just get bored and a joke would pop into my head and I would have to say it. It was almost like I had some brilliant novel in my head that I had to get down, and I would interrupt class all the time and get in trouble.
One of the things that I first remember wanting to be was a 'geolisty' - that was the best I could say when I was a kid. That was right after I stopped wanting to be a fireman or a truck driver. Because my dad is a paleontologist who worked with the Smithsonian, I got to see the bones up close and the exhibits behind the scenes there.