Because the role-model pressure becomes so insane, the personal and private takes a backseat to whatever it takes to maintain that fame and to maintain that lifestyle, and before you know it you're not a human being anymore.

I have never reached certain levels of fame, like Lindsay Lohan did, or even Brittany Murphy. My career has always been this sort of even-keeled, steady existence. I was also raised by poets, and I've been doing poetry as long as I've been acting.

I tried not to make God this big deal in Joan's life. She treats God like a friend: she's nice to him some days, and other days mean, and then cries when she needs help.

For most women, whether you're an actress or whatever you do, there is this pressure in society and within the world to look a certain way, dress a certain way, act a certain way, say certain things, and be this idea as opposed to being a person.

I've been kind of submerged in my own little geographic location for a really long time in Venice Beach

After I saw my first poem published, I became interested in the immortalization of words and the fact that you could put something out there that you felt and that meant something to you, and that it could be interpreted by many different people to mean many different things.

My advice is to make acting your second career choice