“Sometimes chemistry does the trick, and other times, you have to forge that with the people.”

Being onstage is just a feeling that you cannot duplicate anywhere else because the energy that the audience is giving you forces you to give more energy. It’s such an output and exchange of energy. You can’t do that anywhere else.

I grew up about 60 miles northwest of New York, in Middletown, NY.

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you’re playing a car salesman, you don’t want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

I would like to, especially in film, play against type and do some heavier stuff. I’m intrigued by projects that deal with problematic people and things.

I’m at a place in my life where I do finally feel, at least most of the time, that I know who I am and I’m comfortable with the person that I am.

Awards are not something that I measure my work by. I’ve been so fortunate and I’ve gotten to do such terrific things that it seems petty to look back and say, ‘Oh, I should have gotten that prize.’ I’ve been so blessed, it’s hard to look back and think anything but that, so I have no disappointments.

Things don’t always tie up in a nice bow. Even when you make strides with people and relationships, it’s complicated.

I watch a lot of television. I always have.

You always have to make positive choices as an actor, even when you’re playing someone who may not be doing the best things.

People saw me as just a singer – yeah, a pretty face who could sing – and not more than that.

I’m ready and open to meeting the person that hopefully I’ll share my life with. It takes a long time to get to that place.

What is wrong with you people?

After 9/11, the amount of applicants the FBI received increased exponentially. Whereas you used to require a college degree, and it was a small group of people who were just out of college, after 9/11, it changed.

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school. I had the middle part with a swoop, all that. It was the late ’90s!

Singing for stage, if you don’t hear yourself, that’s when you push, and that’s when you can hurt your voice sometimes. So if I can hear myself in my ear, it really helps me to find that balance of how loud I needed to be singing.

Once I came to acting, it was almost a thing where there weren’t enough hours in the day to work on stuff because I was so passionate about it.