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".

The things that make you most mad about the world tend to be the things that you hate in yourself.

I get nervous when I do print interviews because I know that whatever I say is going to be shown through the lens of whomever I'm talking to. So I've read a lot of different versions of myself - and all of them are true because it's all opinion and they're as accurate as it can ever be. But I don't think that I've been deft at hiding parts of my personality.

You know how sports teach kids teamwork and how to be strong and brave and confident? Improv was my sport. I learned how to not waffle and how to hold a conversation, how to take risks and actually be excited to fail.

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 parents always put more of an emphasis on who I was as opposed to what I achieved. They were never like, "You won that! You did this!" It was all about, "You've got a good heart. You're a good friend. You're a good daughter." So that other stuff in no way defines my sense of self.

You can always tell when an actor has grown a 'rhino skin' to protect themselves. It comes across on screen, and they aren't believable. They're dead in the eyes because they've been told a million times that they're the greatest actor that ever lived. If you don't realise what's happening, and get your feet back on the ground, it can be the worst thing that ever happens to you.