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I am usually part of any disaster at a wedding if I’m a bridesmaid, which I’ve been lucky enough to be several times.
Well, you can’t be trying to achieve success of any kind in this business without accepting that there’s going to be a flip side to it.
Beauty comes from a life well lived. If you’ve lived well, your smile lines are in the right places, and your frown lines aren’t too bad, what more do you need?
My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset, I hear my mother’s voice and smile.
My parents started with very little and were the only ones in their families to graduate from college. As parents, they focused on education, but did not stop at academics – they made sure that we knew music, saw art and theatre and traveled – even though it meant budgeting like crazy.
I always, always meant to be on stage. I only ended up even auditioning for television and movies because I was understudying a Turgenev play on Broadway and was so broke that, when I got a mini-series, I had to take it and was so ashamed because I was such a snob.
It’s about getting the kids up and fed, getting one to school, getting the other down for a nap, going to the grocery store, picking one up from school, getting the other one down for another nap, cooking dinner… I live my life at these two extremes. I’m either a full-time stay-at-home mom or a full-time actress.
My mom grew up in poverty in Oklahoma – like Dust Bowl, nine people in one room kind of place – and the way she got out of poverty was through education. My dad grew up without a dad, with very little and he also made his way out through education.
I remember, my mom didn’t have any help, so if she needed to be somewhere after school, we’d just go down to the neighbors’ and she’d give us a snack and make sure we did our homework. There weren’t any latchkey kids.
My mom has always said that the one thing she wishes she had done differently is have a job. She felt like the single-mindedness made her a little nuts sometimes, and she could have used an outlet for herself when we were little.