I wish I gardened. I don't have a space for a garden. I'm in an apartment in New York but I do lots of stuff. I read and write and hang out with people. I go see movies.

I moved to New York when I was almost 21 and I've lived there for almost eight years, now I have a totally different relationship to L.A. There's like all this space and it's so beautiful seeing all these different landscapes and all my friends are here so now I really like it so much but my adjustment period was a little like "What a strange town".

Viola Davis keeps saying this movie should be called The Big Responsibility instead of The Help, because there were so many groups of people that you wanna do right by. You want to do right by Southerners and the African-American community and the readers of the book and the people that grew up with domestics and the people who worked as domestics. There's a million different groups that you're trying to please and satisfy that you're worried about not loving what comes across onscreen.

My great goal in life is to try to remember that everything is of equal value.

For me, the political part of being an actor is very tough. To sit somewhere and tell somebody why you should feel this way or that way about my character does not feel like my responsibility. It feels like the responsibility of the writer and the person who created it.

My life is PG-13 sometimes, and I really want Josh Grogan to propose to me, and he just won't do it.

My mother has always been my emotional barometer and my guidance. I was lucky enough to get to have one woman who truly helped me through everything.