I had taken an acting class at Berkeley - I was on the track team, and a friend of mine on the team said, 'You should take an acting class. It's just like recess.' So I viewed it as a simple credit.

I did not sit down and watch 'Baywatch' growing up. But I do specifically remember it coming on, and I remember it going off. I watched something that came on right before and then going back to that channel to watch what was coming on afterwards.

My father was Muslim, and my mom is Christian, and we moved from New Orleans to Oakland, so I always had this appreciation for different cultures.

When I think about it, I was working very hard the summer before I applied to graduate school. I was going to the library every day in the summer. I read a play a day for about three months. I was taking audition classes, and I was reciting lines to myself and acting as my own scene partner. But I was having fun.

I'm not very excitable as a person. What I say is, I'm always chillin', I'm always chillin'.

Acting was always in the back of my head.

I'm from a place where young people traditionally do not have resources.

I kind of assumed all of Australia was like the Gold Coast - so I was telling people Australians just work out and go to the beach. Like, Australia has it figured out! But then I went to Sydney, and it was nothing like the Gold Coast - but I still loved it.

I wanted to be an architect, and I ended up at my job in San Francisco, and if you would have asked me then, that was one of the greatest jobs that had happened to me in terms of my career.

I have a lot of fun playing quote unquote villains because I think the bad guys get to have more fun, right?

I think that everybody likes the bad guy.

Follow, follow the sun, and which way the wind blows, when this day is done. Breathe, breathe in the air. Set your intentions. Dream with care.

Do what you will while you're able, find what it is that you seek.

Most of my instruments are handmade.

Yidaki didgeridoo has been used in every part of Australian regional culture, all around the country. It's become a message stick for the survival of those people, for aboriginal people and aboriginal culture.

Surf culture and surfing for me are two completely different things. Surf culture has become very - it's a very commercial, competitive thing, fashionable. With all due respect to the 'Surfer Dude' movie, I think the 'Surfer Dude' movie reflects that, reflects what surfing's become, but I come from a place where the surf industry began.

My first instrument was my voice. I was always singing and writing melodies when I was a little kid. I just sort of taught myself whatever was around. If there were instruments around, I'd play them. I always liked the idea of not being shown but coming up with my own energetic connection to the instrument.

Playing live is everything. Sometimes being on the road is hard, and it's a lot of work, and tiring. From a musical point of view, you improve all the time. Not only that, but you learn how to deal with people and deal with energy in a live setting.

I feel my live shows are my music; everything blossoms from the live shows.

It's kind of like some kind of church for me, playing live. Each show, good people from different pockets of the world come and open their soul and let their spirits mingle and dance. That energy comes up through me, and all I do is channel it; it's like a circular motion and very sacred.

It's always great to visit Taranaki; it's beautiful, and I've caught some great waves there.

The music comes through me, and I let it come the way it comes, and it shapes itself. I just hold space for it. I don't intend to write it for a purpose, but it comes as it comes and am proud of the way it can support change because I believe strongly in what I sing about.

I do pinch myself, like when shows in non-English speaking countries are sold out, and people are singing my lyrics. I don't think I'll ever lose that; I'm always appreciative every day of the support I have as an artist, because I'm not a commercial artist.

When people connect to my work, it makes me feel great. A lot of that stuff is really deep, and when I play something and people feel what I feel, and use it in important situations in their lives, like at weddings or funerals, that's so powerful. It means I can connect with them on an important level.

The spirit of yidaki is like a guardian for the song and the journey of my music.

I was always drawn to the didgeridoo.

The best wisdom comes from the hardest struggle.

The music industry is not set up well at all, environmentally. But I sing about what I feel, and I'm very inspired by activists and friends that I get to connect with.

My music is roots music: it's a combination of growing up on the coast and mucking around with wood and wooden tones and sounds, salt, sand, fire, dogs, and heaps of brothers.

I love New Zealand and don't get to come there much. The south coast of Australia and New Zealand have a similar vibration, and a lot of the music comes from this kind of space.

Didgeridoo is a name that white people gave it when they came to Australia, from the sound that it makes. Its traditional name is yidaki.

“Once we give up searching for approval we often find it easier to earn respect.” 

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” 

“so whatever you want to do, just do it...Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.” 

“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.” 

“You're always the person you were when you were born," she says impatiently. "You just keep finding new ways to express it.” 

“Empathy is the most radical of human emotions.” 

“A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual.” 

“we are the women our parents warned us against, and we are proud” 

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn.” 

“Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.” 

“Laughter is a rescue. p.204” 

“One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!” 

“If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?” 

“A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.” 

“Women are always saying,"We can do anything that men can do." But Men should be saying,"We can do anything that women can do.”

“I do not like to write - I like to have written.” 

“When humans are ranked instead of linked, everyone loses.” 

“Decisions are best made by the people affected by them.” 

“Also, one of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.”