When you left this one theater in Norfolk, the actors had to walk through the lobby to get out to the street. People would see you and say nice things, tell you that you were good. So, pretty soon I'm pretending to forget things backstage, going through the lobby a couple of times.

I'm one of the most insecure people in the world, always have been, and when you're a fat kid, you try to make the fat jokes before other people make them.

I felt different from everyone else - like an alien. The looks I received when I was 320 pounds were ones usually reserved for three-eyed monsters, half-man half-woman reptiles, creatures with hideous rolls of skin that sweated profusely and jiggled when they walked. That last one really was me.

I went to high school in Virginia Beach, Va., and we had these guys - they were surfers. They didn't like me, never talked to me. And if they didn't like you, they threw toothpicks at you. After I did a play, it was different. I found out I was pretty good at something.

Health has always been an important thing to me. I exercise and try to take care of myself, and drink a lot of water! And I push that to my kids so that they can carry on that same energy.

Why do we need to support the food stamp program? Because low-income families experience unemployment at a far higher rate than other income groups. Because cutting nutritional assistance programs is immoral and shortsighted, and protecting families from hunger improves their health and educational outcomes.

Metro police can't infuse hope into those for whom hope is foreign. The algorithm does not exist that can heal the traumatized. Data-driven predictions won't result in the delivery of mental health services.

There is considerable merit to the notion of treating gun violence as a public health matter.