I attended Professional Children's School in Manhattan because my ballet and modern dance schedules were intensive and had started to interfere with regular school hours.
I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. The three things that they focused on were reading, writing, and arithmetic. My goodness, this is a novel idea in this modern society. I was really good at all three of these things. I was particularly good at math.
The college that takes students with modest entering abilities and improves their abilities substantially contributes more than the school that takes very bright students and helps them develop only modestly.
I was a religious 'SNL' watcher all through middle school. I was obsessed with Molly Shannon, Ana Gasteyer, Cheri Oteri - they were on right when I found the show. Then I started watching the older episodes, and it just totally blew my mind that my dream show already existed.
When I was in high school I was a really huge 'SNL' fan. I remember the cast around the time I started watching it - Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Cheri O'Teri, Tracy Morgan. I did research to find out how people got on the show. Their bios always said they came from an improv team, so I started taking classes.
My mom and dad met at Anaheim High School. After they got married, all they wanted to do was have four children, and they did.
I'm used to getting up at 7, getting breakfast, getting the kids off to school, and doing the mommy thing and the wife thing and the daughter thing.
I got my degree in theatre at a little school in Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg University. It was one of those situations where I went into the major because I loved it, but didn't really expect to see it as a moneymaking situation or career.
After high school I was going to be an architect. In fact, I was studying to be an architect when the audition for 'The Monkees' came along.
My mother went to a school called 'The Club of the Three Wise Monkeys'. And my grandmother, my father's mother, had a gold charm for her made with the speak no, see no, hear no evil monkeys. And I was fascinated by that charm. I'd sit in my mother's lap and play with it all the time.
When I was auditioning for drama school and looking for a monologue, it was all, 'I'm whinging about my period or my baby that has died or my boyfriend...' Why can't you have a normal girl, talking about ideas?
I have been doing acting my whole life. I did plays in high school. I take it pretty seriously. I used to do a lot of Shakespeare and Shakespearean festivals and monologues.
My brother Trev went to the Professional Performing Arts School in New York, and he used to do his monologues and stuff and rehearse in our apartment. So I used to hear him all the time doing these things over and over and over. And when I was a little girl, I used to soak up everything - like anything anyone did, I soaked it up.
I went to NYU drama school, so I was a very serious actress. I used to do monologues with a Southern accent, and I was really into drama and drama school. And then, in my last year of drama school, I did a comedy show, and the show became a big hit on campus.
In high school, I came out to my friends as queer. My entire world opened up; this was a monumental step toward unveiling my truest self. I had my first girlfriend when I was sixteen years old.
The importance of 'Dream School' is monumental. Helping to inspire these students to reach their potential is personally gratifying.
I was pulled out of school for every moratorium day and every rally for a left-wing candidate... from Ed Koch in his heyday to Eugene McCarthy. That's the culture that I came from.
Mormons are an extraordinarily educated and professional population. They have all these virtues: They work hard, don't skip school, have no scandals. Consequently, you find them in a lot of consequential places.
When I walked to school in the mornings I would start out alone but would pick up four other boys along the way. We would set out together after school across the village green.
I know what falling off the cliff means. I know from being considered a very bright kid to being considered like a moron and dropping out of school.
