The task is not to perfect yourself, it's to perfect your love.
I grew up in a very suburban neighborhood, so I was used to everything being safe and lovely.
When the doors to television were opened to me, that was quite a surprise. It's been such a gift that there was so much TV and independent film happening in New York that I could be a part of. There was something to satiate my desire to be artistic and creative, especially when it wasn't in the way I originally thought it was going to be.
Sometimes as human beings, we're so contradictory - we may say something or do something and completely contradict ourselves. That's what I'm learning to embrace in television - not knowing what's going to happen. I might make a specific choice for myself and then in the next episode the writers might write something that contradicts it.
There is a voice inside of my head that is trying to convince me that I'm not good enough and that I don't deserve to be here in Hollywood. So courage is required. The courage to decide that I have a voice and need to do what I love. To believe that this opportunity is not wasted on me. To own the fact that I am worthy.
If you're doing an indie and you have time, sometimes you can do take after take after take, but if you're working in television on that filming schedule, you don't always have the time to do that. You learn very quickly, I think, how essential it is to come in with the strongest choice that you have.
When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you're waiting and waiting and waiting, once you're actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.
But love, sooner or later, forces us out of time. . . of all that we feel and do, all the virtues and all the sins, love alone crowds us at last over the edge of the world. For love is always more than a little strange here. . . It is in the world, but is not altogether of it. It is of eternity. It takes us there when it most holds us here.
The amiable is a duty most certainly, but must not be exercised at the expense of any of the virtues. He who seeks to do the amiable always, can only be successful at the frequent expense of his manhood.
Anybody who achieves what Malcolm Fraser achieved in his life deserves respect as a quite extraordinary Australian.
Another nice thing was that I would type out letters home for the admiral's stewards. They would then feed me the same food the admiral ate.