I think it starts to feel really redundant when you start to do something the same way over and over again. I don't think it's good to become so dependent on a certain writing process.

In the past I've been very into the falling part, very into the swimming in the dark, deep emotional water. 'Rampart' I really went into it and it took me three times as long to get out of that depression as it did to just do the scenes. I had to learn to give it my all and then go home and laugh.

When I take on a character, it's a sacrifice. There's something that you give up every time. I want to become these characters, and I want to be mysterious, but if you know too much about me, it's not going to be too much fun watching me play a character, because it's just going to be me with a mask on, instead of you believing what the mask is.

I know how to have a conversation, but I've never done improv. I've never taken improv classes.

I had started acting when I was 7, and I was always wrong. I would always get to the very end [of the audition], but I wasn't a perfect package of one thing. I wasn't a cliche, and it always worked against me. I wasn't pretty enough to play the popular girl, I wasn't mousy enough to be the mousy girl. Then there was a TV show that Toni Collette was starring in. And when a role to play a girl who was struggling with identity came, I thought: "Oh, this is what I was supposed to do. Everything's leading up to this moment." I was 18. I was like, "This is it." I didn't get it. And I was devastated.

You know how it is when you put on your best friend's shirt. You feel weird, even if everyone tells you that it looks good. You know that it isn't right.

I was home-schooled, was always very close with my mom and was very straight-laced and square. I was never the rebellious one, and I never threw hissy fits.