I really loved animals when I was little - my friend and I had an imaginary vet's office; we would mime doing surgery on animals. We treated more injuries than illnesses - fixing with a baby bear with a broken leg, removing a tumor. Of course, our surgeries would take about five seconds; that's how good we were.
My dad was a mime and then he had his company and created plays for children and was very successful with it.
I was a mime. I'm not kidding. I went to Northwestern University and they have a mime company, so we did a lot of training and then a lot of mime shows around Chicago.
Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don't realize it. It's very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own.
I worked with a mime coach. I did weapons training. I did weight training.
I learned mime back when I was in college, at Ball State University, Indiana. That woke up my body from the neck down and made me realize that acting and communication - portraying a story, event, or emotion - is a full-body experience.
Physical expression was my first language: Before I was an actor, I was a dancer, an acrobat, a mime and a street performer.
I could have become a mime or a juggler, but I became a singer-songwriter instead.
My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute.
I studied and performed and even taught mime years ago.