My strength as an actor is in the theater - I know that about myself. Some actors get onstage and vanish but I'm much better there than I am on screen.

When onstage I always try to take my audience through as many emotions as I possibly can. I want them to go from laughter to tears be shocked and surprised and walk out the door with a renewed sense of themselves - and maybe a smile.

Just me onstage with a mike having an intimate relationship with the audience. I don't get nervous for that. I just get excited.

It's sort of a feeling of power onstage. It's really the ability to make people smile or just to turn them one way or another for that duration of time and for it to have some effect later on. I don't really think it's power... it's the goodness.

My mom was onstage when she was pregnant with me.

I'm now learning how to distinguish when I'm acting and when I'm not acting - offstage as well as onstage.

I'm getting to a point where everything is becoming streamlined in my life. I'm learning how to stand onstage for two hours and play in front of thousands of people as if I am completely in the moment every moment.

I love theatrics and have a huge imagination: Why would I want to sit onstage and sing a bunch of ballads back-to-back?

Lesbian humor isn't trying to sell anything it doesn't have to sell out. Coming out as a lesbian onstage is still a very political act if it weren't more women would do it.

People come up to me as I leave the stage after a performance and tell me tey saw my mother onstage with me every time I sing. I keep a sense of humor about it.

I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction and then yes you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you and it's all caught on film or onstage.

The aesthetic came along the way I think - just through experimenting and going on tour and trying stuff out on stage having fun with it and not taking it too seriously. If I had a ballgown at home I'd wear it onstage. If I found something in a charity shop I'd wear it. That's where it grew from - just wanting to play dress-up.

I'm most at home on the stage. I was carried onstage for the first time when I was six months old.

I can never tell when something is funny. I just have to do it onstage and find out.

People see you onstage and the glamorous side but they don't see you traveling 600 miles a night eating truck stop food and spending by yourself staring at walls.

I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack.

We played in Texas about a year ago at Emo's the famous country and western club in Austin. And I figured well if I'm finally gonna die onstage that's where it's going to be!