In L.A., being an actor is like a pastime, everybody there is like, "I was on this reality show; I'm an actor." It becomes a word that is loosely thrown around.

My mom was really busy when I was growing up, but she did a really good job in terms of balancing her home life with her professional life. She basically took me everywhere.

Theater is a lot more interactive, more of a cohesive unit. With television, it can be a different director every episode.

My thing is that if you don't really connect to something or see that it's going to be something you're going to be proud of, I wouldn't do it.

The directors were often really nice and I was well behaved, so I would just sit there in rehearsal. That allowed me to see the process - not just the result, the red carpet, all of the wonderful, fun things that happen afterwards - the nuts and bolts, the nitty-gritty, "Let's try to build this character from the page," tech rehearsals.

I wanted to become an actor and I knew that if I was really going to do it, I needed the training. I was not one of those people that was like, "I got it." I was like, "No, I don't have it yet. I need work. I need help fixing myself."

When I'm in Los Angeles, sometimes I hesitate saying that I'm an actor because people are like, "Of course you are." And I'm like "No, not, 'Of course I am.'"