There's something about Southern women that is so unique yet so universal. Strong southern women are allowed to be soft and feminine and have a sense of humor. But what I love about Southern women in particular is their universality.

For my birthday this year, my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like "Blue Kentucky Girl," by Emmylou Harris, and "Off the Wall," by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can't have a music collection without Prince's "Purple Rain" - it just can't be done!

I always want to stretch myself and do something that I haven't done before.

I'm obsessed with 'Thelma and Louise,' and therefore obsessed with Callie Khouri who wrote that movie.

There are so many women out there who are single moms, really not by choice, and doing it and making it work every day. I think it's becoming much more a part of our culture and I hope that it will become more accepted and that those women are going to be more and more appreciated, respected and supported.

In terms of American Horror Story and Nashville, what attracted me to those, and Friday Night Lights, for that matter, is that they felt like something innovative and something that we hadn't seen before. As an actor, that's exciting.

I was born in Boston, but then I went down to Virginia. We spent a little time in Maryland, and then were in Virginia by the time I was seven. What struck me the most was that my mother thought that she had gone to the middle of nowhere, and we would still drive four hours for her to get her hair cut in Washington, D.C.