Is it crazy to say that I don't often eat breakfast? But every time I go to a diner, I have to have a breakfast-type item, even if it's 11:30 at night. I love my morning eats!
The fact that Eddie Vedder likes to play 3 hour plus shows a night, I have to be ready for that.
I'm not a child star, but you could say that I've grown up on TV. I went from being an unknown, down-and-out comic from Brooklyn and the Bronx to being a regular character on a major network comedy called 'Martin.' From there I went on to become the most notable black comic on 'Saturday Night Live' since Eddie Murphy.
I used to sneak up to the 8th floor and watch Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo rehearsing 'Saturday Night Live' and could only wonder if I would ever have the chance to be funny. It took me five years to go up the two stories, but it is such a sense of fulfillment to be able to show what I can do on national television.
There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge.
With film, so much is in the director's hands. Once something is cut together - unless you're in the editing room - you don't really remember what the alternatives are. The exercise in theater is night after night, you are doing the same play, but you have another opportunity to explore.
At the end of the day, making 'Monster' was unbelievably hard, as making any movie is. And the only thing that made it worth it is not those awards and all those kind of things that I can barely remember because I was so overwhelmed. It was really that night in the editing room, that day on set. It was those things.
Whether it's eight o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.
In our system, at about 11:30 on election night, they just push you off the edge of the cliff-and that's it. You might scream on the way down, but you're going to hit the bottom, and you're not going to be in elective office.
I have to write and play. If I became an electrician tomorrow, I'd still come home at night and write songs.
I saw Ellen and my knees were weak. It was amazing. And it was very hard for me to get her out of my mind after that. Then when I saw her that night, we started talking, and that's that.
I was a big Jay Leno fan, so I was sorry to see him go. But my number one person that I watch, she's not late night, but in terms of the comedian genre, is Ellen DeGeneres - love her.
Roseanne was a huge groundbreaking comedian. Margaret Cho. Ellen DeGeneres, and then on 'Saturday Night Live,' the era of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler sort of helped to bring in an awareness of a new generation of women comedians, often women who were feminist in their comedy, who were unafraid - and this came from the genre of show that was emerging.
I've seen some great write ups and I emailed her the other night because I saw her on an awards show recently.
Basically, when I get home I just do emails for around three hours, which stinks. I have a thing about getting into your inbox every night before going to bed. I'm usually working from my laptop or my phone, desperately trying to get my inbox to zero before I fall asleep.
Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the other side of things.
The last thing you want to do is play a long gig on a hot night, pass out, and wind up in a hospital emergency room.
Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night.
I'm an ambassador for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and one of the children, his wish was to go to the Emmys, so he's going to be my date, along with my husband, and my dad and his girlfriend. So we're going to have a really fun night and it's going to be really exciting. I'm really excited for him to experience that.
The best thing about New York is working late into the night. At 1 in the morning on a Saturday, to be still working, there's an immense satisfaction in being enclosed by it.
