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I did a film in Nairobi, Kenya called 'The Last Elephant,' with John Lithgow, Isabella Rosallini, and James Earl Jones. So I was in seventh heaven, alright? About a year later I get a call from my agent and he says they want to see you for this project called Candyman. I thought he was joking so I hung up.
I decided I would open this little actors' workshop I always told actors to look for. That gave me something to do on Wednesday nights, and after about a year of that, I realized that some of the things I was saying to actors probably had broader application. I ran into a magazine called 'Speakers For Free.'
I went to all the shops in the village looking for work. I didn't have any qualifications. I ended up working in a grocery shop for about a year and then went to a confectioner, where I earned three pounds 10 shillings. I gave the money to my mother and father, but I also managed to save five shillings a week.
I initially got a job at Disneyland through a friend who was working there. He said, 'You would make a great princess there,' and that I should audition. So I just went on a whim to audition, and I wound up getting a job as Belle, from 'Beauty and the Beast,' at Disneyland. I did that for about a year and a half.
I came out when I was 17. I was in the church; I was crying every Sunday for about a year. I came to terms with the fact with this is who I was - I wasn't going to be able to be a different person. At 17, you feel like a freak already, and so to have that fire and brimstone against your attraction is just screwed up!
We were a single-parent household for a while. It was just my mom, me, and my brother. We were on welfare for about a year and a half. But I remember my mom never complained, and we never wanted for anything. She always made ends meet and she's been the rock for the family. She instilled in me work ethic and toughness.
I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.
I'm not going to tell you the movies, but I remember getting halfway through the thing and everything sort of tunnel-visioned on me and I couldn't read the script anymore. I looked at the people and I just turned and ran out in a cold sweat. It took me about a year to study it and feel comfortable going in and reading for people.
I tend to start with a kernel, a vague concept, and just begin to write things down - notes about a character, lines of dialogue, descriptive passages about a place. One idea fires another. I do that for about a year. By then there's a story, and I'll go on to a complete first draft that sews many of those ragtag pieces together.
Plagiarism has been around far longer than the Internet. In fact, I had a poem published in 'Seventeen' magazine when I was 15 years old. About a year later I was informed that there was a girl who used that same poem to win a statewide poetry competition in Alabama. It took months for people to put together that this had happened.
About a year ago I got really exhausted from reading bad scripts and I know that I am a writer and that I have stories to tell, so I thought, 'Let's do this!' So I'm co-writing a screenplay now with another screenwriter and loving it. Absolutely loving it. And I would like to be the producer on the project and of course the lead is me.
I never had a burning desire to have children. But then I met Nick, and I thought, 'This is the only person I'd do this with.' So we tried, but I was a little long in the tooth for that sort of thing. But we didn't turn it into a soap opera. We tried for about a year or so, and it didn't happen and took that to mean it wasn't meant to be.
I was one of the first six black kids to integrate a formerly all-white school. I remember being looked at all the time and people laughing at my hair. I was also very self-conscious about the food I had for lunch. I had egg sandwiches, and the other mothers gave kids fancy stuff like bologna and Marmite. It took about a year to settle in.
I played rugby league, I probably played for about 10 years I think, and I wrestled before then. I did about a year of wrestling, and I think I got a bit tired of the tights, so I started to play football with the mates. I used to be a front rower, the big guys up front. I used to be 97 kilograms, which is like 210 pounds, or something like that.