I'm girlie in the sense that I like makeup, but I ...

American Idol transcends age, gender, ethnicity, everything.

I love being around my friends and my family and spending time with my husband. I like being normal and recharging my batteries, and I feel like I have the coolest job in the world where I get to get on stage and perform and get to do a lot of really amazing things.

Being a part of SKECHERS is exciting. It is such a hip company with a great attitude and image.

I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table.

My inspiration was my mom. She's a great cook, and she still cooks, and we still banter back and forth about cooking. Growing up in a mostly Portuguese community, food was important and the family table was extremely important. At a very young age I understood that.

We incorporated new tastes and flavors into our kids' diets from a very early age, which helped to develop their palates and prevented them from becoming picky eaters. We don't buy junk food and give them options of fresh fruit, yogurt, raw almonds, or dried whole grain cereals for snack time.

I've always felt that sexuality is a really slippery thing. In this day and age, it tends to get categorized and labeled, and I think labels are for food. Canned food.

We've just got to be careful - with all sports, let alone cricket - I think there's so much emphasis on doing the right thing all the time, but I think the public want to be entertained when they come to watch sport.

The things that people do now in sports, you can't even believe. These are complete total athletes. To see what human beings can do in the highest level is amazing.

I got amazing training both with Theatre Sports... back in Edmonton, Alberta - I can't give those people enough credit - and the daytime drama I did. Incredible training, both of them.

As a kid who wasn't into sports, at school I felt almost alienated at times, whereas in the theatre community there was this amazing sense of camaraderie. Early on, we would go to rehearsals with my dad and I was like the mascot for the backstage crew. That was a big part of my childhood, so I dreamed of one day doing a play in London.