I was one of those that didn't so much go to the discos or the clubs to drink. I went with a towel around my neck. I was ready to sweat!
It's depressing to think what it would mean to be impaired down the neck.
I was stupid when I started: the epitome of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It was like, 'I get to live in L.A. and drive around in limos? Really?' I didn't realize I was owned. The more money gets pumped into you, the more you become a marionette. It made me a true redneck in attitude: I never wanted to wake up ever again feeling owned.
At some point, I would like to write a book and other things, but I work best when there is some sort of deadline in my own mind, but not when fifty people or fifty million people are breathing down the back of my neck.
I only thought I'd get one arm done at first. One arm turned into the other arm. Then I started tattooing my lower arms. I remember saying, 'Mom, don't worry, I'm never going to do anything on my neck.' Then I went to my neck and my chest and my legs, and I kept on progressing from there.
Coming out of Juilliard, I honestly was expecting and willing to be breaking my neck, hustling, and being unemployed for a decade, two decades. I was gritting my teeth, but I was so down to do that.
I don't know how I didn't kill any one of my sisters. For this one horror film we were making, I made my own harness for my sister. I wrapped her in all these ropes, but then also put a noose around her neck and hung her from a tree. Now I think, 'What if my harness didn't work?' I'm so lucky that nothing ever happened.
My mom would put me in these preppy little suits and slick my hair to the side. I have these baby pictures of me where I'm this little preppy kid with a sweater tied around my neck.
When you're with another actor who's also been through five hours of prosthetic makeup, and you're eating another person's neck, and fake blood is being spurted out at you for two minutes, it's incredibly fun, and you're in character for that time. You can't really believe that that's your job.
I'm sure a psychologist would see something highly significant in how absent-minded I am. I mean I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached to my neck by muscles, ligaments and my esophagus.
