I performed after 9/11 for relief workers down by Ground Zero. There were these men just coming back, and they were voraciously hungry. They were heroes, pulling rubble, and I was a new comic trying to go blue just so I could get some laughs.

On tour, it's either call ex-boyfriends or tweet a lot. You're just looking for any proof that you're not completely alone.

It's pretty satisfying to use an image when you don't have a great articulate response. And to be able to customize emoji? Imagine if you were a car enthusiast and you were able to create a car from scratch. That's what this is like for me. I'm an emoji enthusiast.

I would say that I have a love-hate relationship with almost everything in my life, including stand-up.

When you see the industry's fickleness so early on, you realise that you are only as good as your last release. It is all about your work. And that has set the way I look at my profession and what I do in my career.

I've learned that it's important to listen to employees at all levels, to engage them, to empower them. Whether you're a first-line supervisor or the head of an entire agency, you should be asking career staffers, 'What do you think?'

I was playing the best football of my career at the time, finishing top scorer in Italy three year's running. There were other good players around but I think I was the best at that time.

No one's career is full of highs. Somewhere down the line you are going to get kicked where it hurts and it's how you deal with that.