I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.
I was involved in a bunch of school activities - I was a cheerleader, I was on the chess team, I was vice president of my class.
I dropped out of school at 17 and joined the Irish band The Frames, getting my first glimpse into the world of professional film making while shooting of a number of rock videos.
I drifted into acting. My grandfather had a house in Buffalo in which there was a stage, and his friends met every two weeks or so to put on plays. So it was natural for me to put on plays, too, when I went to boarding school. I put on everything in the drama - I was indiscriminate. I put on Yeats and Shaw and Lady Gregory.
When I was at youth theatre and drama school, I never thought people would mistake me for a stand-up.
I went to high school, and I started getting bullied because I was very weird. I mean, freshman year I went to school in a pirate suit - I just didn't care. I'm not like the cool girls - I'm the other girl. The one that's basically a nerd, but proud of that.
My parents didn't make a lot of money. My dad was not a high school graduate - he didn't have a career as such; he was a printing salesman essentially for most of his working life.
My parents decided - because they were not going to teach us anything Jewish at home - to send both me and my sister to a Jewish primary school. So I went to Kerem Primary School in Hampstead Garden Suburb. But, for me, that school really didn't work that well.
I loved to make people laugh in high school, and then I found I loved being on stage in front of people. I'm sure that's some kind of ego trip or a way to overcome shyness. I was very kind of shy and reserved, so there's a way to be on stage and be performing and balance your life out.
Kids would never care about going to school unless your mama and daddy instilled into your head and explained to you that you need this thing to live.
When your kids are 5 or 6, they already start playing with makeup. And I was the only mother in freakin' elementary school getting called in to deal with makeup on her daughter.
I went to theater school at Northwestern, and I was quite conservative. Reagan at the time seemed quite revolutionary, or at least a rock star: He was radical and kind of punk rock.
You lose your home, you lose your community, you lose your school, you lose your stuff.
If you want a good education, go to private schools. If you can't afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.
My mom was an aesthetician and she went to beauty school back in the '60s. I just remember watching her do her makeup all the time. She always had her nails done, makeup on - her face was ready to go when she went out. I loved it.
I did, like, one or two plays in high school, but I don't think I realized I wanted to do comedy until I got to college, and I started doing improv and saw the Upright Citizens Brigade perform and did workshops with them.
I remember when I was in school I had this teacher give me this E.L. Doctorow quote: They asked him how much historical research he does for his books and he said, 'As little as possible.' So I try and adhere to that.
I did a play in high school, then one in college. My first professional experience was off-off-Broadway. I'm conveniently blocking the title. I'm sure I was terrible.
Sometimes when I'm not working, I go and teach at an acting school, and quite selfishly, that makes me feel more inspired to do things myself.
How can a child adhere to school and the notion of secularism when they see their mother rejected from a school outing, stigmatized, left on the sidelines, just because she has a scarf on her head?
I had a science teacher in middle school who inspired me... simply because she acknowledged me and made me feel that what I had to offer was worthy.
Opening Day was a big thing. I came to a lot of Orioles games. I grew up a couple blocks from here, so I was always coming down to the stadium. I always made it down for Opening Day until I was a little bit older and I had ball. But when I was younger, I always missed school.
I had a really creative teacher at primary school. He used to get us doing things such as singing Spandau Ballet in drag in the choir, and I remember loving it.
I went to my school careers counselors and said I wanted to be an actor, and they didn't know what to do. They showed me catalogues with pretty campuses and said, 'Oh, look, there's a theater building. Why don't you go there?'
Someone had an eye on me as I was leaving high school. I had a chance to record demos, but they were kind of wanting to make a pop singer out of me, of the 'X Factor' variety. I didn't feel comfortable with it. I wanted to be a songwriter.
I gleaned different style ideas over the years. In Southern California, there is a big rockabilly sub-culture. So when I would go to car shows, I would see women dressed like this. I had a teacher in high school that always had her Bette Paige bangs.
There's such a fan base for 'Dark Shadows'. I remember watching the show as a kid, but I wasn't an ardent fan. I didn't run home from school to watch it.
Prom has all the elements of a popular story. It reeks of all-Americanness, tension, drama. It has romance. Pretty dresses. Dancing. Limos. High school. Coming of age.
Improv definitely made me a better auditioner, without a doubt. We did do an audition semester in grad school, and that was helpful for those times that you have a script and you have a few days to prepare it, to really work on sides. But the auditions I was doing in New York, if you got it the night before, you were very lucky.
I don't know what Trump has to do to lose his supporters. It's like a religion. He's a school bully.
I'm quite comfortable with being a geek. I've been a geek since high school.
My high school wasn't a big public school; it was tiny. There were 36 girls in my graduating class. We were a big group of girls that by the time senior year came along couldn't wait to get away from school fast enough but we loved each other. It's really fun to see the girls at reunions now.
When my kids were growing up, I wanted their teachers to teach them science, reading, math and history. I also wanted them to care about my kids. But I did not want my children's public school teachers teaching them religion. That was my job as a parent and the job of our church, Sunday school, and youth group.
As a teenager, I was always this strange mixture of kind of vice-captain of the rugby team and sensitive artist type the rest of the time. I was sent away to this public school in the middle of nowhere, and I think we managed to completely miss out on normal youth culture.
You're not on scholarship for school, and it sounds crazy when a student-athlete says that, but that's - those are the things coaches tell them every day: 'You're not on scholarship for school.'
I started playing baseball and soccer. Those were my sports on the streets and in school when I was growing up. I didn't even start playing basketball until I was 14.
