Our happiness is certainly mixed in with the tragedies of life. You have to find the lemonade. You have to find the silver lining in the middle of everything that happens in life.

When the time came for me to go to college, there was only one scholarship that my high school offered at the time and I didn't win that one, but that didn't stop me. I went on to college anyway. I worked my way through it and paid my student loans for 11 years.

I was an only child for 16 years. I didn't realize it at the time, but that experience definitely turned me into a people pleaser. I always tried to do what was expected of me, and I constantly sought reassurance from the adults around me that I was doing a good job.

My first show was 'The King and I' when I was five.

Before 'Grey's Anatomy,' I was doing musicals, plays, commercials, you name it.

Our happiness is certainly mixed in with the tragedies of life. You have to find the lemonade. You have to find the silver lining in the middle of everything that happens in life.

I wanted a good relationship with my mother, and I realized I had a choice: Either I could spend all my time angry that she didn't give me the hugs I thought I needed, or I could understand that she hugs differently. It's not a spread-open-the-arms, 'come here' hug. She hugs by sheltering me from her worries.