When I was 18, I moved out of home. I decided to try to be an actor, so took myself off to slum it with nine humans and a million mice in a red Leytonstone house.
I'm a big micro manager; I'm a stickler about organisation; everything needs a place, a purpose, and micro managing myself even when I'm in the studio.
My hair was curly, and everyone else's was straight or in micro braids. I didn't have a lot of money, so I shopped at thrift stores. And I'm petite - I never looked shapely. I remember thinking, 'Will I ever have that stereotypical round, full butt that people think most black women have? I had to find another way to feel good about myself.
Primarily I see myself as so much more than a rapper. I really believe I am the voice for a lot of people who don't have that microphone or who can't rap.
Each season, my balance gets worse, and sometimes I fall. I no longer cook for myself but microwave widower food, mostly Stouffer's. My fingers are clumsy and slow with buttons.
It was one of those early mid-life crises, really. I started asking myself, 'What is it that I want from my life?' This question kept haunting me: 'Do I want to be a lawyer who always wanted to be a writer, or do I actually want to be a writer?
When I first decided I was going to have a go at writing a book - and really, it was a mid-life crisis - I was 39. I was in business with my husband; we had a very busy lifestyle and quite a hectic schedule running this flourishing business in travel, and I found myself waking up and realising that I didn't want to do this anymore.
I would describe myself as a tallish, shy, middle-aged man who equally loves his work and his freedom. And a good liar!
The question I ask myself is: have I really just become a squeamish middle-aged man, or has something happened to the horror genre that shows a growing appetite for watching torture, or at least a desire to explore it on film? And if so, why would that be? I can't pretend I know. I just know I don't like it.
Once I reached about 14 or 15, I started to steady myself and get into a midfield role and carried that on until I was 17. Then I dropped into right-back, and I have played there ever since.
What can I do, I asked myself, that is so spectacular that no one will be able to say he had seen it before? The answer was perfectly obvious. I would send a midget up to bat.
I found an agent midway through my year-long run at 'Grease' and just started to audition. I fortunately booked 'South Pacific' six months after 'Grease' was over, and I feel like that was a huge turning point in legitimizing myself in the Broadway community, and getting to do that was absolutely amazing.
I am a fairly mongrelized person - you know I've been a migrant my whole life, and it's hard to think of myself as any pure one thing. And so I take it, I guess, very personally - this notion that migrants are bad and that mixing is bad and that people from other places are bad.
The choice of roles as I grow older gets more and more limited, so if I pin myself to one kind of part I would get in trouble. So, these oddball ladies came along for me to do - I guess Terry Gilliam helped in this respect. I have found them more interesting, flashier and I get more mileage out of them.
As a premature baby myself, my family faced many challenges in ensuring that I had a healthy start at life. There are so many obstacles for these babies and their families that each new day is a milestone.
One of the reasons I'm on tour is to meet people. I consider it a reconnaissance. You know, I consider myself like in a military operation. I don't feel like a citizen.
I call myself a liberal - a classical liberal as in John Stuart Mill.
I get writer's block all the time. The only way I can write what I consider to be good lyrics is to put myself through the mill.
I'm a 'specist.' I hate the human race. Of course, therefore, I hate myself the most, because I am the least of the human race. I'm the product of 6 million years of evolution? Come on, man.
I'm a really competitive guy. I'm a really stubborn guy. That's what makes me want to take Milwaukee to the top, make Milwaukee a big market team. That's a goal I've set for myself. Hopefully, one day I can achieve it.
