My best friend growing up really put the bug in my ear about acting. We created this one hour-and-a-half improv play when we were 10 or 11 and performed it at the library. We just played off each other so well and had the best time doing it and the funniest part was, we wound up having packed houses, other people loved it too.

I wanted to be a violin-maker like my dad, and then I wanted to be a doorman in my building.

I went to this tattoo parlor in the East Village and I got an outline of a violin on my lower back. They call them tramp stamps now.

I went to an all-girls pre school where everyone went off to Harvard or Yale, and I had zero interest in doing so. I think they thought I was on drugs. There was a neighboring all-boys school, so we'd get together and do dumb things. It was your typical Catholic-American upbringing.