WEBVTT

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Officer, officer!

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Yes Miss Simple?

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I wish to report a case of

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deliberate and malicious sabotage.

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Sabotage? Of what Miss Simple?

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Of my petunias.

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I think I was extremely
dramatic all the time.

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My entire family would sit around and watch

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what frightening little shows I would do.

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Some heinous little song and dance

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and everybody in my family would clap.

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My entire family supported,

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at least initially,

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my attempts to be an actress.

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My parents always taught us

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that it was really important to work hard.

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My father,

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he really wanted me to be the best

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at anything that I did.

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If I would bring home a report card

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and I\'d have three A\'s and a B,

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he\'d be like why not all A\'s?

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I think I was auditioning for Street Car,

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I got called back for Stella.

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Why not Blanche?

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And while I think I probably
fussed at the time,

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I\'m enormously grateful for that.

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He taught me to be kinda fearless.

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I never wanted to live
anywhere but New York.

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It\'s like the center of the universe.

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You can make your own opportunities here.

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It excites me and it energizes me.

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There are certain moments
that I\'ve been on stage,

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you feel like everybody in the audience is

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part of the whole experience.

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They\'re getting it, they\'re responding.

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You\'re on a wave and

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everybody\'s feeling it.

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The advantage of off-Broadway is that

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people can sit in a theater
and almost touch the actors.

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And have a much more

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immediate and hopefully
visceral experience.

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They can sit in the third row.

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What did Mrs. Johanesten tell you?

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Put the gun down Mrs. Brent

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I have sixteen hours a week

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where I get to do what I love to do

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and just use that part of my brain.

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But I have to say, if that’s all I did

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in my week I would lose my mind.

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I\'m an actress,

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a theater owner,

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a professor,

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and a producer.

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My bag of potato chips.

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It’s my dinner.

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I’ve always been someone who did

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twenty things at once.

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I have a theory.

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The laundry theory of life.

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If you have all day to do your laundry,

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it\'s going to take you all day.

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If you\'re busy,

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you\'re up at six,

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you do your laundry you,

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check your email, do everything
while you’re doing your laundry,

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and you\'re out of the house by eight.

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Busy people can do more.

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You want to be actor?

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You think it’s glamorous?

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I never ask anybody who
works at this theater

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to do anything that I haven\'t done, like,

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at least fifty times.

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Unplugging a toilet,

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fixing the roof,

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dealing with somebody who threw up,

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customers who are screaming.

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Yeah, the theater isn’t open yet

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but when it is open, it
will be right down there.

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Ok?

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They\'re have been a lot
of people who worked here

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who were

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damaged in some way

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and they found their way here.

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Somebody told me about
a woman who was good.

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She worked for me for maybe

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six months and then she said I
have to tell you something.

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I spent thirteen years in a mental hospital

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and I just got out about two years ago.

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I\'ve had thirty-three
electric-shock treatments

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and I\'m sure you\'re going
to want to fire me now.

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And I said why, you do a fabulous job.

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There\'s a whole slew of people
like that, that kind of

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didn\'t feel so good about themselves,

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by virtue of the work that they did here,

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started to feel empowered.

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I\'m just the vessel through
which they found that work.

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And maybe because I was willing
to give some of them the chance,

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if that makes sense, so.

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One, two,

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three, four, five, six.

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Hold it,

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two, three, four, five, six.

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Let it out.

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Two, three, four, five, six.

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Stop and bounce.

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Swing your arms.

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I teach acting

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and I make all my students do push-ups.

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I can do 180 marine push-ups,

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which is I think admirable
for a 56-year-old woman.

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See I have good arms for like,

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you can\'t get that,

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you don\'t want that middle
aged lady saggy thing.

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I refuse to watch Hunger Games, I refuse.

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I\'m too freaking old.

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I don’t want to see that, it’s savage.

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You know? I don’t, I have no desire.

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It’s like I didn’t like reading \"1984\"

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like in 1970.

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But, you are right!

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It’s the end of things here.

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You can get rid of some of it,

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but, I think some of it, you seem,

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like, emotionally impotent almost.

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Do you know what I mean,
except that you love her but,

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as Jenna said, you can’t leave your wife.

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The most educated people are in the army.

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I’m very thirsty.

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I tell people it shouldn\'t be agony.

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You are kind of drunk and
happy and he\'s like,

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you are the best I’ve got you stupid bitch.

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Take off my bandage.

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Act like a fucking mother.

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If you\'re throwing up everyday

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before you go on stage, find another job.

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Or figure out why you\'re
throwing up and stop.

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You can only worry so much

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about what people think
about your performance.

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Welcome to this performance

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of Perfect Crime.

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Please take this opportunity

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to turn off all cell phones,
pagers, and beepers.

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Some of the happiest times that
I\'ve spent in my life have been

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on stage doing this play.

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I throw on the wig, put on the costume,

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grab the gun and go.

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I’m going to possess you again.

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Can’t you understand that?

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Do you know what I’ve done for you?

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What about Asher?

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Don’t lie to me!

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I’m going to have Lionel
kill him on Sunday night.

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I love you.

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Don’t betray me.

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No, I won’t.

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Don’t ever leave me.

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No, I won’t.

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Tell me!

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I love you, I swear it.

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Just you.

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The play is called Perfect Crime.

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The central character is a woman
named Margaret Thorne Brent

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who is a very smart psychiatrist

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who does a lot of things

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that are somewhat questionably moral

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for money.

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You shouldn’t be kissing suspects anyway.

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It\'s fun to yell and scream and

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shoot and get slapped and kiss.

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I know you killed them.

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When you have to do kissing scenes,

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you don\'t eat garlic

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because it\'s just rude.

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I struggled with Inspector Asher,

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the gun went off, I
grabbed the baseball bat,

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come to Lakehill road, help me, please!

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The guy that I have to kiss

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was a soap opera star for 22 years.

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He was a huge heart throb
and he\'s the best kisser

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because he\'s totally romantic

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and completely asexual.

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I really do love what I do.

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And,

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I haven\'t had a sick day in 25 years.

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We hit our 25th anniversary,

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our 10,000 performance.

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and we figured out that I\'ve spent

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two and a half years of my life

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saying these lines.

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So I\'ve been able to carve out for myself

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a career, some stability,

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in a field where there
isn\'t much stability.

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I\'ve been able to do something
that I really love to do

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over and over.

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I do try to change the
intention a little bit

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and make it fresh.

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There are a hundred different
ways to say I love you.

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And I\'ve tried them all.

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That\'s the trick, right,

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finding different ways to say it?

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And hopefully people watching

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don\'t ever just feel like
she\'s just phoning it in.

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If I felt like I was phoning
it in I would stop doing it.

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Truly.

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You know?

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I get home at eleven o\'clock at night.

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And I\'m usually out of the house by 7:30.

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The people in my life,

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my family and my boyfriend,

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have a

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complicated relationship to this play.

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They have seen the play maybe once

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in 25 years.

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They appreciate the work
that I\'ve done, but it also

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keeps me from being a constant presence

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in their lives.

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While I do a lot of working,

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I have somebody in my life that
I really love very fiercely.

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As proud as I am of everything
that\'s happening here,

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there\'s something about putting
my arms around him and

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cuddling next to him that,

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that is a really important
part of who I am.

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We have a little saying and
I\'ll go, what time is it?

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And he\'ll go, it\'s the
best time of the day.

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I don\'t know if he\'s my boyfriend

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because he\'s 62

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and he\'s too old to be my boyfriend.

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He\'s like Tony Soprano.

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Talks like, “Howya doin\'

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Pat Rubastelli, I\'m Pat
Rubastelli, hah, yeah.”

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That\'s how he is.

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He\'s very, um, New York.

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She is a pretty dynamic lady.

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And I do love her very much.

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I actually read about her

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on a poster board.

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This girl has done 2,500 shows

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and never took a day off?

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I says, that’s my kind of girl.

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Lo and behold.

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Unfortunately we don\'t have

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the time we\'d like, I\'d like
to have spending with her.

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Because it\'s come home,

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eat something, not much,

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a cracker, a piece of cheese,

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maybe a glass of water, you know.

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And then, out like a light.

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She is a good woman.

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She tries very hard.

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And sometimes

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it amazes me what she can do.

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I don\'t have any children.

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That\'s my one regret,

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that I didn\'t have children.

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I met my true love when I was 40

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and it just wasn\'t going to happen.

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What was good was you
came in with something

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and I think that’s great.

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I have to compensate by

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mothering people who

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needed some more parenting.

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There are people in my life who,

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Oh God, I\'m going to get sad.

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I love like children,

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and so I guess that they felt

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mothered by me.

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This one young woman who I\'ve helped,

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and she sends me a Mother\'s Day card

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and calls me every Mother\'s Day.

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Oh God, I have to stop.

00:11:29.709 --> 00:11:32.750
You\'re like Barbara Walters making me cry.

00:11:32.751 --> 00:11:35.541
The people who I\'ve affected
by loving really fiercely

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and protecting and setting
some sort of example for,

00:11:39.500 --> 00:11:41.000
that, to me, is my legacy.

00:11:43.083 --> 00:11:45.499
There is a point in your life

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when you start to realize

00:11:47.667 --> 00:11:49.208
there\'s a lot more

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important things than

00:11:50.959 --> 00:11:55.125
trying to go out and make a living.

00:11:57.917 --> 00:12:01.249
But, time goes by too fast
when you are in love.

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So I don\'t know if it is a good thing

00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:05.333
to be so much in love.

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Time just goes by too fast.

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It\'s like waking up loving your job.

00:12:10.626 --> 00:12:11.958
Where did the day go?

00:12:11.959 --> 00:12:13.667
What\'s happening?

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Ok, that’s it.

00:12:20.542 --> 00:12:22.709
We done?