The poetry when I was a kid felt like something that I could control, and whether it failed or not, whether it was good or not, was totally on me and I could accept that. It was entirely mine.

Right afterward I read Fast Food Nation. That book changed my life: It made me a vegetarian.

And a lot of times in slam poetry I feel like people are so worried about the performance that the words might not be as strong.

I remember when I first started in the business, I lost a lot of friends. Some were jealous, some were annoyed at the fact that I was an actress.

My father comes from a generation of film that actors my age don't even know about, which is really sad.

Feminism? The word itself means exactly the same thing to me as the word God does - it's a spirituality that is deeply personal, deeply subjective, and deeply no one else's business. You can identify the word however you want, it's just the non-exploration of it that is unacceptable to me.

A lot of people think I'm cynical when I talk about acting. The truth of the matter is, I just don't want someone to get some lame advice that will send them in the wrong direction