I've gradually grown more comfortable with who I am and what I am.

I find it very hard to play a part, then take it off like a cheap suit and become Mr Normal - Mr. Nice Guy.

Even now I can't stand being recognized in the street. I just hate it when strangers come up and try to talk to me. I'm pathologically shy.

I was racing through life, utterly confused and angry. I don't know if I was out of control; it was more like I felt frustrated with myself and everything I saw happening around me.

My career was always about working with people, and understanding issues and problems and helping them to solve those issues and problems. How you deal with people - that's what diplomacy is all about. So while I'm not a career diplomat, many of the skills I had seemed to directly translate into the diplomatic arena.

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

I had a band with David Gates. There was just a lot of opportunity at that time. But I left for Los Angeles the week after I graduated high school, and I actually left to try to get into the advertising business. That was really why I went out to L.A. My music career was almost an accident.

D.C. fans, I think, are so good. They just come up to me, and they're so nice and so polite and just, 'Hey, I hope you have a great career,' and 'How are you doing, everything's good?' That's pretty much where they leave it at.