Take anything seriously in life, and you set yourself up for peril - trust me.

To be yourself is truly a revolutionary act, and I think more and more people should try it, because it's gotten me a pretty cool life.

A lot of people, they think, 'Oh, I'm only going to be happy when I find a special person who is going to make me happy.' No. In life, you have to be happy with yourself first, number one.

I could have been a dental hygienist with nothing bad ever appearing in print about me, but that's not how I've chosen to lead my life. I knew that you put yourself under a microscope the more famous you become.

As I go through life, I can see why my mother directed me that way, or why my father counseled me in that way. But some things you're open to when you're young, and some things you need to find out for yourself. I think that that's pretty universal.

It is therapeutic for me to act, to be able to slip into somebody else's skin, and know it's not you, but know that you bring a lot of yourself to it. At times in my life it's provided me with a lot of confusion. It's also provided me with a lot of discovery.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

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