She is… a New Yorker through and through, but one with deep roots in the heartland of America. A mother. An actress. A feminist. An optimist.
The biggest or most important fight you had in your life?
I have had lots of big fights in my life (running for Governor of New York for example) but I have a feeling the biggest one is still ahead of me.
Are we all a mix of shadows and lights?
My lightness is the joy and excitement I feel everyday at my life and the people in it. The closeness of my personal relationships are really what sustains and uplifts me. My shadows are my perfectionism and my anger. Those two seem so wound up in each other. I had a therapist once who told me I should write on my palms “anxious not angry” so I could look at it in moments of crisis and realize that when I seem the most ferocious, what I really am is riddled with anxiety.
The moment you reveal your strength most vividly?
Both of my parents were strong opinionated people. As a young person I was always rewarded for going along with what they thought and what they wanted. I feel that I reveal my strength today when I allow myself to believe in my own opinions, voice them, and fight for them.
Everyone has a conviction, a statement guiding our path, what is yours?
My conviction is that everyone should (and can) have enough. We are so far from that and getting farther away everyday. What perverts us ALL is the widening gap between those who have too little and those who have too much. Obviously the greatest harm is being done to those who don’t have enough but it is important to understand it also warps and disfigures those at the other end of the spectrum.
Mind Upload is the beginning of our heroine’s story. If you could augment yourself, what personal abilities would you expand?
If I could augment myself, the superpower I would most want to have would be to time travel and go back not only to moments in my life but of those nearest and dearest to me. I would be able to revisit all of my children at younger ages and be able to spend time with my wife at an age before the one when I met her.
Encountering a magic wand, how do you redesign your future and ours? Would you even use it?
If life gave me a magic wand I would without question use it! Of course one could make many mistakes but how can one not try??? The thing that makes me the most worried for myself, for my children and their children and for all of us is how we can continue to survive on this planet if we don’t do everything in our power to reverse global warming. We have so many powerful individuals and industries that are keeping us prisoner but with a magic wand I could make enough change to start the transition and show everyone that by converting to less harmful energy sources, not only can we save the planet and ourselves, we can provide good employment for millions of people.
Never give up: What would you say to your best friend or child?
I’m not sure this is what you are asking but my oldest friend (we were in kindergarten together) and I were talking the other day and we discovered that both of our mothers had told us the same thing when we were little which was “never become financially dependent on a man”. Our mothers made sure they never were. They always supported themselves. And the same has been true of my old friend and I. You never know what can happen in romantic relationships. And if you need to leave one, you have to be free to go, without worrying that leaving would mean you wouldn’t have a place to live or food to eat. The ability to keep your independence is very important. Especially for women.
The best:
My biggest achievement is my relative sanity. I was a child actor since the age of 12. That can mess anyone up. I grew up with a father with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and his tempers were truly terrifying. I’m not totally sane by any stretch of the imagination but I think I’m a relatively down-to-earth, loving person. And of that I am proud (and for that I am grateful).
