When I got the job on 'Lost,' I was a broke university student living in the crappiest part of town, with a duct-taped back window on a broken-down car. I existed on peanut butter and tea.

People initially think I'm a snob because I'm intensely private.

I bought almost every single thing that I furnished my house with at the Salvation Army in Hawaii. All second hand. Some of them are kind of retro, and some of them you'd never know.

When I pick a role, one of the things that I aspire to is that somebody's parent will come up to me after the film has come out and say, "My daughter idealizes that character. You're her hero." That's what I aim for. We're in the business of making heroes.

I wasn't actually going to see the original film [Lord of the Ring], because I didn't think it was possible that a film could represent the books appropriately. So I was protesting, and I wasn't going to see them. And then my family all took a jaunt together, the entire family, to see the movies, and were like, "What, you're just going to stay home?" So I saw the movies and was thoroughly impressed that Peter Jackson managed to make my vision of the book come to life, as well as my sister's and my father's, and my aunt's and my uncle's, everyone's.

I'm a good Canadian girl. I miss all that good stuff. I miss tobogganing and I miss snowboarding, but I've also learned to surf and I've become a water baby which I used to be relatively terrified of the water and I kayak all the time now and I'm able to run year round on the beach which you can't obviously do in Canada.

I just wanted friends. I just wanted people to like me. I just wanted for things to be simple and good. So, for five years I actively sought out mediocrity.