I think that usually I'm just drawn to something that's different from something that I've done previously. Whatever makes me feel something. Whatever makes me excited and connected to it.

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.

I just always loved mythology, ever since I was a kid. Greek mythology was something I remember learning about in fourth grade, and Egypt, too, and something about both those things just clicked with me. I just thought they both were so beautiful and interesting to learn about.

It [the film industry] is not a glamorous industry. It's really, really hard, and you get told all the time, "You're not this, you're not that," and so you have to find a center.

I would go into periods of depression in my life, and I would feel so alone. I felt that there was no one who understood how I felt, either on TV or in music, and writing really helped me change what I thought and how I felt about myself.

The way that I'm feeling the shift in movie industry is that women are allowed to be part of the development process. So I do feel like things are changing because I'm allowed to option books or write an original screenplay or direct. Those possibilities are really wide open. I think that males still struggle to write for females, which is totally fine because I don't think I could write a really impactful male role because that's not the life that I lived. So we'll just keep shouting and say we need more opportunities for not just women but people that are just different.

I think that fashion is very important for me and I think that it's a wonderful means of self-expression.