At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.
I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself.
I'm interested in generating work for myself. I have trouble with this waiting-for-the-phone-to-ring lifestyle, especially after drama school, which was so creatively fulfilling.
I haven't done period dramas back-to-back, or really anything back-to-back. You get asked to do what you're most recently famed for, so I'm careful of not repeating myself.
I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I've been on 'The Daily Show,' people think I'm a comedian. That's not how I see myself.
Definitely for myself, I find myself gravitating towards dramatic work. In terms of sitcoms, you know, I always tell my agent I don't want to be seen.
I can't really define myself as a dramatist or as an actor or as someone who is interested in music.
I think it's handy for a dramatist of any sort, if I can call myself that, to make use of weddings and wakes, to make use of those moments and those rituals that cause us to pause and look back or look forward and understand that life has changed.
I had never thought of myself as a dramatist, and, for really good technical results, the thought came too late: a man of letters has become too wordy to write economically for the stage.
I drank for about 25 years getting over the loss of my father and I took the anger out on myself. I did a good job at beating myself up at sometimes. I don't drink anymore but my alcoholic head occasionally says different. 'Nil By Mouth' was a love letter to my father because I needed to resolve some issues in order to be able to forgive him.
I did have some secret abortions myself, which I repented from when I was born again in 1983. I drank the abortion Kool-Aid temporarily because I thought it was the answer.
I never drank water. Always soda. I didn't use to like water, but I've had to train myself to drink it.
To be very honest, I cannot drape a saree myself. I have never draped one on my own, ever. But it has been done on me so many times, that now I have memorised all the steps, and if someone challenges me, I will surely be able to do it.
When I started to allow myself to not be locked into wearing men's clothes, things kind of opened up. It feels very kind to drape yourself in something that feels special.
I stopped smoking. When I stopped smoking, my voice changed... so drastically, I couldn't believe it myself.
I was in the gym five days a week, two hours a day. At one point, I was going seven days straight. I had put on a lot of weight, and then I started losing it drastically, so I was worried. It turned out I was overworking myself. My trainer told me that I couldn't break a sweat, because I was burning more calories than I was putting on.
I don't look at my films or my old drawings much, so that was an interesting way to kind of reconnect with myself a bit.
I want to have a good time myself. I don't want to dread going to work no matter what the gig is. I think, selfishly, I will make sure that I have a good time; how about that?
Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one.
My parents always told me to be myself. I was always funny and silly as a kid. And I would always make them laugh. And they always told me to dream big and follow those dreams.
