You cut their money back, for one thing... I go back a long way with the NEA.

My appearance qualifies me for historic characterizations, going back to the year one.

Well, we have certainly produced great art before we did this. In my view, there are any number of areas of government which tax money should not be spent.

Kids are the most conventional people in the world. It is more important than anything else for them to conform, and I was a kind of oddball. I was driven into being independent. I was very, very unhappy.

My father was brought up in an orphanage in the Catskills. He was a factory worker. And because his family wasn't there for him, family was everything. We could disagree inside the house, but outside the house it was us against the world. So when I became a drag actor, he looked sideways but said okay.

Some people don't like telling about personal life. I don't like it, either, but you want to tell the fans where I'm growing up, how I did it, who supports me - see my house, my family. It's nice.

I hope to spend more time with my family.

Growing up in Ireland, when my family received important news, good or bad, we would boil water and make tea. It was the first thing I did when my father died in 1984. This ritual allowed me a moment to take in the enormity of what had happened.