It's really hard for me to sometimes put myself out there like 'Hey how do you feel about making music together?' because maybe I'm afraid of rejection or I don't want to put anybody out. It's the Southerner in me like 'I don't mean to bother you but do you mind making a song?'

I think it would be a lot easier if I said 'I feel like a dude ' but I was raised by a southern mom so I know how to put on lipstick and walk in heels and rock that look. It's exactly that juxtaposition that confuses people.

We're definitely a hodgepodge of influences. Mine most heavily would be Southern rock - the Allman Brothers Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff like that. Hillary is more from the country side - her mom is Linda Davis a country singer. Dave he's a big fan of the Eagles and like that.

My very sassy older southern sister is very quick to point out that it's a luxury that my daughter gets to come to work with me. She does and I have lunch with her every single day. My mom says I have 'high class problems.'

My mom is very Southern and she in real life says things like 'If you've got it flaunt it.'

The Southern slave would obey God in respect to marriage and also to the reading and studying of His word. But this as we have seen is forbidden him.

Adultery - which is the only grounds for divorce in New York - is not grounds for divorce in California. As a matter of fact adultery in Southern California is grounds for marriage.

I think that's what's great about being an actress is you get to learn so many different things like that like learning a little bit of Tibetan here learning a Southern accent there.

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.

There's something about Southern women that is so unique yet so universal. Strong southern women are allowed to be soft and feminine and have a sense of humor. But what I love about Southern women in particular is their universality.

People may think of Southern humor in terms of missing teeth and outhouse accidents but the best of it is a rich vein running through the best of Southern literature.

I had in mind a message although I hope it doesn't intrude too badly persuading Americans and especially Southerners of the critical importance of land and our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive Malcolm X was alive great great leaders were emerging from the southern freedom movement.

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history but Southern identity now has more to do with food accents manners music than the Confederate past. It's something that's open to both races a variety of ethnic groups and people who move here.

When I was growing up in Mississippi - it was good Southern food... but I also grew up with a Greek family when other kids were eating fried okra we were eating steamed artichokes. So I think it played a big part in my healthy cooking.

Of course I will continue to share my favorite Southern recipes just like my mama grandmother and family shared with me over the years. And now I'll be adding a little bit of a lighter touch to some of these wonderful dishes.

You know Southerners are pretty cool.

Well it's a little harder in New York. It's not as forgiving to a film crew. You hold up a bunch of New Yorkers who can't cross the street they're not going to take it well. Southern California? They'll wait. It's cool man. In New York they're like 'Are you kidding me? I gotta get to work.'

Big Star invented a vision of bohemian rock & roll cool that had nothing to do with New York Los Angeles or London which made them completely out of style in the 1970s but also made them an inspiration to generations of weird Southern kids.

I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him.

Family trips to Yellowstone and to what are now national parks in Southern Utah driving the primitive roads and cars of that day were real adventures.

Southern California they have been amazing. They're totally with us.

Most of the southern hemisphere is unexplored. We had more exploration ships down there during Captain Cook's time than now. It's amazing.

It's a melting pot southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music and it's pretty amazing.