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.

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."

I was thrust into a really lofty, enviable, but isolated position with 'Princess Diaries' in that I could carry a film before I really knew if I could act.

I see myself as improving. I think I'm a very curious person, and I like that about myself .

I gave up my struggle with perfection a long time ago. That is a concept I don't find very interesting anymore. Everyone just wants to look good in the photographs. I think that is where some of the pressure comes from. Be happy. Be yourself, the day is about a lot more.

I want to work with people that frighten me and excite me, and characters that I don't believe I'm the best person for the part but I'm still gonna try anyway. Those are my favorite roles.

I try to stay out of the spotlight as much as humanly possible, because I think that when actors, whether or not they've chosen it or it has been thrust upon them, are living very public lives, it affects your ability to get lost in their performances.