Then you started getting off-Broadway jobs, right? Actually, I got my first one after about four or five months of living in New York. It was a regional-theater job. First, I was in Buffalo, New York. Then I went to Boston to do a job there. Then I came back to the city and I had some little jobs on TV. Then I ended up on a soap opera, As the World Turns, for three years. That was my first big job. I guess I started in 1985.
So you've lived there since? Except for, like, four years, when I lived in Los Angeles.

Is there one place where you went in the beginning and still go to now? When I was still a senior in college in Boston, I got an [acting] job in the city. It was my first trip to New York alone. I was terrified. I flew to New Jersey, took the bus into Port Authority, took the subway down to Sheridan Square, and walked to the theater. This was all at the crack of dawn. I think rehearsals started at 11 or something. I got there so early. I didn't have anywhere to go and I found myself in the way West Village, so I started walking. I walked down Bank Street and there was this place called Café Sasha Sasha on the Hudson. I went in and had a cup of coffee. I was so excited and thrilled by the area and I thought, Wow, if I ever live in New York City, I want to have a house in the way West Village. Finally, Christmas 2004, I moved into my house in the way West Village. So, it took me a long time.

Tell me about your neighborhood. It's very small in scale. A lot has happened to it since the Meatpacking District has become more popular. There are more restaurants. It's always been a very community-oriented place, a very tolerant place. There are a lot of families here. It's very quiet. Now that the river has been developed, they are doing this whole program with the walkway. It's a beautiful place to walk. There is a children's water park right off of Horatio, if you go all the way west on Horatio. My kids love it, and in the summertime they turn the water on and all the kids run through it.