Jayma Mays

I was so focused at 21, maybe to my own detriment because I didn't allow myself to have fun. I was constantly looking for the next audition and working to pay the bills.

I was really across-the-board, like a nutcase. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I just did everything. I was even part of FHA, Future Homemakers of America. How lost was I?

Growing up I played piano and I sang at a lot of weddings; I grew up in a very small town, a little coal-mining town in Virginia called Grundy. And my family was very sing-songy at home.

I became a cartoonist because I'd sort of failed at everything else, really. I mean, it was by default.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.