Juilliard gave me the ability to go and do classical, contemporary, comedy, drama, everything.
Be your true self. Because if you're not, there are consequences to be paid.
In 1974, when the city of Boston was desegregating its schools, I watched the news with my dad and saw the police escorts in riot gear, the protesters screaming at the buses, small frightened faces in their windows.
New Orleans, more than many places I know, actually tangibly lives its culture. It's not just a residual of life; it's a part of life. Music is at every major milestone of our life: birth, marriage, death. It's our culture.
The key, I always thought, to my career would be diversity - a diversity of not only the type of work that you do but the mediums.
I trained at Juilliard so that I could do all kinds of genres, so that's what I'm trained to do.