Pauley Perrette: I was a criminal science fanatic and went to study it in college as well and I think that helped me on NCIS because I was comfortable with the language, I had studied criminal science in school for years.
My absolute favorite movie of all time is Pink Floyd's 'The Wall.' Nothing compares to it. I have seen it thousands of times and still watch it every few weeks.
I love working with new directors. There's so much drive and effort. It still comes down to the character for me, but if it's a character I really want to play, I would never not do the project because of a new director.
I ended up in college by accident. Everything in my life, I ended up in by accident. I was down south in this high school doing whatever. It could just not contain me. I quit school and took off and traveled around. Nobody knew where I was I just couldn't handle it anymore. It was a big scandal, I was gone. I left.
I was a bartender in New York and I overheard this girl saying she made $3000 doing a commercial. A kid at work told me, 'Hey, I know this director and he'd really like you!'. So I walked into this guy's office and was like 'I was thinking maybe I could make $3000' and he hired me for commercials, short films, like 15 jobs in a row.
I like having black hair. When I was really young, I wanted to be Asian - Asian hair is beautiful. I also wanted to look like the girl in George Michael's 'Father Figure' video.
I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.
I hated high school and got to college and realized they didn't care if I showed up because I'd already paid. So I decided, 'I'm going to turn this around.' And I did: I got straight A's and was named 'outstanding senior.'
I believe that what is legislated bleeds down into everything. So if the legislation continues to uphold anything that doesn't support equal rights and civil rights, that bleeds down into Matthew Shepard being murdered.
I always tell myself that when you're playing a character, pretend they're on trial and you're giving the best witness of their life. You really need to think about every element of the character and represent them properly, as if they were a real person. You want to give 100 percent of what they're worth and what they deserve as people.
In the women's movement, women needed men to stand up and say, 'This isn't right.' In the civil rights of the '60s, it took people of all color to demand equal rights.
I grew up in the Deep South, where sexism, racism, and homophobia were and still are alive and well. I have early, early memories of words and actions of this type being very painful.
