I'm pretty good at remaining calm during an emergency. My house burned down when I was 12, which made me really pragmatic about what needed to be done. But I can be bad in that I compartmentalize a lot of emotions and push them away to deal with them at a later date.

Taking a year off and going to school was the best thing I could have done after 'The Princess Diaries.' It taught me that I don't need Hollywood or a job to make me happy.

I think the only thing in life that you really have to worry about is how you treat other people. If you mess up and treat someone else badly, you apologize, and you don't apologize for anything else. Be yourself and go for it.

My biggest fear is overreaching. I have been in situations where I felt swamped, and it's turned out really well; and I've had other situations where I've had to walk off the film after five minutes because I realized I was in way over my head.

After Princess Diaries, I was labeled a good girl, and for the first eight years of my career I had to fight to get any other kind of role. But I like fighting for a job, actually. Once you get it, you feel like you've emerged victorious from the scrap and you're like, "OK, this one's mine. Did it. Done."

A bad love experience is no reason to fear a new love experience.

I think I was raised in a solidly upper-middle class family who had really strong values and excess was not one of the things that my family put up with.