| so I could try again, but I didn’t have the courage or the nerve. I was too shy to go back and ask for a second chance. My shyness has always been the elephant in the room and has, at times, held me back from performing in my freest, most authentic way and from getting whatever it is I want. It’s something I have always struggled with and is an area where I wish I could be more like Erica. To this very day, I regret my decision not to return because I know I could have landed that part and I would have loved to play Miranda. Since I am a trained Method actress, I draw from my personal experiences and recollections, whether it’s sense memory or the memory of an actual event. I always wanted to do well and enjoy the work I chose to do. There are many times when I wish I wasn’t such a perfectionist because that drive often hampers me. I get so disappointed when I don’t meet my self-imposed expectations. Not only do I feel like I’ve let other people down, I feel as if I’ve let myself down, too. Even now, I sometimes think that maybe I’m kidding myself—that I’m not a very good actress and that what I’ve really been is lucky all these years. I’ve been told I’m talented since I was a little girl, but I still question myself all of the time. Can I do this? Am |
a perfect match because Helmut loves to cook and I love to eat, especially the foods he makes. When we were first married, I didn’t know how to cook anything. I wanted to prepare delicious meals for my husband, but I lacked the skills and knowledge to pull it off. All I knew how to cook was spaghetti sauce, tuna casserole, and frozen chicken potpies. The first time I made dinner for us as a married couple, I was in the kitchen stirring canned mushroom soup into my fabulous tuna casserole, when Helmut came up behind me at the stove, looked over my shoulder into the pot, and said, “I love you, honey, but I can’t eat that shit!” Thinking I had to up the ante, I attempted to make a roast pork dish because I knew it was one of the national dishes of Austria. I mistakenly ordered a smoked pork from the butcher and tried to roast it. I didn’t know the difference between these two varieties of pork, so I popped it in the oven and turned it into a completely inedible piece of shoe leather that smelled nearly as bad as it tasted. I made another effort to surprise Helmut, this time with a beautiful apple strudel, which was a total disaster as well. I had been inspired by watching Helmut’s sister-in-law Erna make this dish in Austria. Erna is the quintessential European wife. She works, comes home, irons, cooks, and keeps the most gorgeous home |
