When I get up in the morning I brush my teeth and go about my business and if I am going anywhere interesting I take my camera along.

My mom was a photographer and whenever they needed a baby for a modelling job she'd stick me in front of the camera. That's how it started.

It would be great to do another television show that was a multi-camera because the hours are so wonderful and you can be a good mom at the same time. The problem is there aren't a lot of multi-camera shows that I personally like. My aesthetic is more geared toward single-camera shows.

My mom had gotten a Super 8 camera to make home movies with and my brother and me got our hands on it and ran with it.

Have you ever heard of a good marriage growing in front of the cameras?

Growing up my sisters and I would always talk stories. One of my frustrations was I didn't know anything about cameras. I didn't know how to make a film and I obviously didn't have a special effects budget. I was a kid. So I was learning to draw to get down the stuff that was in my head that I couldn't afford to actually do.

I love the work I love being in front of the camera and working with actors and directors and creating something. For me it's like learning everyday.

I'd go down to the end of my street to a garage that had a certain feeling about it or a particular light I'd take a picture of a friend who needed a head shot. That's how I learned instead of having school assignments and learning camera techniques.

The problem for me is that I've never actually studied photography so it's quite a steep learning curve. Cameras these days do so much for you automatically but I still think there's a point where you should actually know the technical side.

If it doesn't feel like a job and I'm learning something and getting that rush that I get I don't care if it's behind a camera on a TV set or on the moon.

I spent a lot of years just learning my craft and falling down in front of the camera.

If this validates anything it's that learning how to bunt and hit and run and turning two is more important than knowing where to find the little red light at the dug out camera.

That first year at Universal was a big blur and naturally I thought they were wasting me. I didn't realize at the time that I was learning my craft and acting more easily in front of the camera.

Making a film of a work you've played for six weeks gives you intimate knowledge of the character. By the time you go in front of the camera you've worked out the behavior and life of a character.

For example I spent a lot of time with Reagan both before he ran for governor and when he was running for president. As a print reporter without the cameras I was able to really test the quality of their minds and their knowledge base.

I try not to put anything political on the forefront of what I'm trying to do creatively. At the same time I do think it's wonderful when I hear people say that it's inspirational that I'm an Indian woman on camera. My life is very diverse and my friends are a diverse group of people.

As an actor you have to have a strong vivid imagination as you're working and when the camera's rolling but there's certainly a part of you that is aware of real life that you're making a movie.

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise everything else is a matter of degrees.

There is a part of me that still wants to go out and grab a backpack and unplug - not take a cellphone or even a camera and just get out there and experience the world and travel. I have yet to do that but someday I hope.

To not be self-conscious of your appearance is huge and something that I desperately hope to carry into film at some point in my useless life - to not be thinking 'My ear looks weird from this angle why is the camera over there?'

I think I'm becoming more relaxed in front of a camera. I suppose I'll always feel slightly more at home on stage. It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you.

Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do so they can be ready to follow.

The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken.

I was on the yearbook staff so I would take out film cameras and Nikons and take photos around school and at sporting events and things like that. We had a darkroom as well. I just loved it. I also saved up for a video camera to video my friends and cut and paste the videos together and I gave them to all of my friends for graduation.