I was home-schooled 'cause I wanted to be an actor. I would spend all day watching movies, trying to get through calculus.

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 have to be really comfortable with yourself because people are going to tell you that you're eyes are too brown or you're this or you're that. And if you're not comfortable with yourself, you could get pretty freaked out.

Sometimes I laugh with my parents, and sometimes I yell at them, and both are therapeutic.

It's hard when I get to the end of the movie and am held hostage and am supposed to be very upset and the funniest things I've ever heard in my life are coming out. All I can do is pretend there's something really important behind me to hide my face from it.

I usually get my lyrics when I let my mind wander, when you're not really awake, but not yet fully asleep. I keep an open notebook by my bed and then just write whatever comes to me.

I try to find some sort of meditative hobby to do on set, and it's different for every film. There's a lot of downtime, but I don't like reading on set because it feels like you're taking yourself out of your world, instead of being present. And then, you feel like you're not ready to do whatever you have to do.