I go through insanity before a show. It's not really a process but it's like absolute mortal fear.
I've wanted to act since I was seven. The year before, I'd been a munchkin in 'The Wizard of Oz' and was overcome with terror. The next year I just watched. My sister was in 'The Little Mermaid' and I had this deep knowing that I needed to be there on stage, not in the audience.
When you get real stage fright, it comes like a sledgehammer out of the blue in the middle of something that you know you've done too many times before, and there's no rhyme or reason for it. It's something quite different from being nervous. It's almost paralysing.
The stage always terrified me. The live audience is just one thing I bewilderingly look back on and say, 'How did I ever participate in that?'
I'll give you my worst nightmare. I'm dreaming that I'm onstage, the curtain goes up, and I have no idea what my lines are or what's going on. I think I should know, I kind of know, I remember rehearsing... and the audience is there waiting.
My stage fright gets worse at every performance. During the overture I hope for a theater fire, typhoon, revolution in the Pentagon.
In the Seventies I was so scared I wouldn't go on stage.
The idea of doing theatre always terrified me because I get terrible stage fright. In the early 1970s I was offered a panto but the thought of going on stage was just too mortifying.
I'm like that person who hates going to magic shows - and I love magic, I love wizards - but going to a show where there is any possibility of audience participation is a nightmare for me.
I was on stage and I was like I will pay someone to do my time, not only will I expect NOT to be paid, but I will pay someone if I can run off stage right now. It was so bad.
