I grew up reading thrillers, science fiction, fantasy - you name it - and one day I asked myself if there was a reason why a fear of spiders was so common. Was there something buried deep in our evolutionary history that made being scared of spiders a survival instinct?
I have this fantasy of relaxing and doing nothing. But I'm obviously very passionate about stand-up comedy. I mean, I keep doing it. So I must be really into it.
I think a lot of people want people who actually have qualities they don't find attractive as a way of being able to change them. It's fascinating, because people think if they can change the other person, they can change themselves. It's a complex phenomenon. It's a fantasy that's actually about being able to come to terms with ourselves.
I've always loved fantasy. I think it's a great way to look at issues that we have in our own lives with a little bit of the pressure off, you know.
In my fantasy I was always the savior. I would come to Peanuts land and save everybody. Charlie Brown would fall madly in love with me. Peppermint Patty was so jealous.
My sister is older than me and would often go off, so I grew up alone in a sense. I had to amuse myself and developed a wonderful fantasy world and quite happily lived in it. I think, in adulthood, that helped me. I love pottering on my own.
I think that there was a lot of fantasy projected onto me, and that resulted in a reappropriation and re-characterization of who I am.
We all get stuck. We all lose ourselves a little bit in a fantasy or in our jobs and forget how we feel about other things. It's really important to check yourself, to spend some time alone.
There's so much power in allegory, to form ideas and learn lessons that you can actually take and apply to real life. I think that's why I originally really loved fantasy and reading.
'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' by Betty Smith is one of my favorites. Even though it doesn't have any monsters or crazy fantasy in it, it's such a raw story, and I can really relate to the characters. I think it's a beautiful story.
