Lucy Liu

And I think the person that I could connect to was this, it was in, well, I know now that she was an actress, but I thought she was a real person that worked in a laundromat and it was a Calgon ad.

And she would say, Calgon, take me away.

And that was the person that I really thought, oh, I see myself.

So there's somebody in that set that looks like me.

And so it's pretty funny to think about that now.

But yes, it was something that I really was just dreamed about.

And I mean, the fact that I'm even here at NPR is just a dream come true.

There was a manager on a subway that gave me his card, and I was, of course, very suspicious because we've lived this very insular life, you know, and who's this person giving me this card?

And how old were you about?

I was a teenager because I was going to high school at that point and taking the subway by myself.

So I was definitely in high school at that point, and...

I remember, I mean, we only had yellow pages back then.

So I called the Better Business Bureau to find out if this person was real.

And it turned out he was real.

What did he say to you when he saw you?

He just said, you have an interesting look.

And I feel like you might, you know, be very successful doing commercials or something.

Give me a call.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that's what he said.

And then I did call him.