. >> tell me about karen elaine johnson. who is karen elaine johnson?eshe's a very nice lady. it's my real name. >> and tell me about growing up as karen in new york in the '60s. >> in chelsey. >> in the projects. >> i lived in the chelsey projects. and i was very lucky to be raised by a fairly strange and wonderful woman. we knew smattering of different languages because of course a lot of immigrants coming into chelsey. >> you said earlier you don't mind being out of line, out of step. and i read somewhere that your mother sort of preshed that, that it's okay to be different. >> she didn't preach it. she was really clear about it. and my mother said, listen, if you are going to in cities insi being an individual, people will be mad at you, and if you handle that, life should be quite interesting. >> well, that's an under statement. >> yes. >> you started acting quite young. why? what drew you to that? >> i just liked it. you could pretend to be people from other places. you could be from the moon. you could be anything. you could be a knight. you coul