When I first moved to L.A., I didn't have a lot of money to join a gym or take classes, so I improvised. My sister and I went to the library and looked over their DVD collection and discovered Neena and Veena, these Egyptian twins who have a whole series of belly dancing routines. We did them all.

I always wanted to be an actress. I couldn't imagine being anything else.

When I first moved to L.A., I didn't have a lot of money to join a gym or take classes, so I improvised. My sister and I went to the library and looked over their DVD collection and discovered Neena and Veena, these Egyptian twins who have a whole series of belly dancing routines. We did them all.

I know imitation is the highest form of flattery, but stealing one's identity is totally different.

When I want to feel sexy, I like to dance-even if I'm at home by myself in my knee-high socks sliding there like 'Risky Business'… my sisters and I, if one of us starts, we're all there in front of the mirror, dancing, and it's just obnoxious. I feel sexy when I do that.

We look at a person and see the person we want to see. I've had to deal with that my whole life, walking in a room and girls thinking I'm going to steal their boyfriends!

A good two years after Hurricane Katrina I remember feeling so devastated and so ignorant that there was so much damage still left. I felt like here I was an American and this is an American city and the government hasn't done enough and people haven't given back enough. Everyone forgot and the city was lying in waste.