I think a lot of people are projecting their own troubles and fears concerning sexuality onto those around them, and it does result in the perpetuation of a lot of hateful notions. As long as I can remember, I've felt really horrified watching those dynamics play out.

The token gay character is always so funny and so fantastic. That's happened a lot. Or they're often purely victims.

New Jersey was actually a very cold place. There was such an intense concentration of wealth, and such a low concentration of any actual human happiness. A lot of people seem to be similar to the kid in school, which is doing a lot of things with no direct consequence to their joy, or their lives.

Every teenager deals in his or her own sexuality and has to face it and figure out how it can coincide with the rest of their lives in a healthy manner. And try to navigate it in our modern society, which is wrought with stigma and taboo and repression, and sort of as a result, these inner monsters that some teenagers really struggle with.

If there's any sort of superpower we desperately need right now, it's this transcendental force that reminds us of union and connection. I think that superhero stories come from somewhere. We make these aspirational images, to remind us that we have this capacity in ourselves already. I think that electricity can run through disconnected wires. Superheroes, every single one of them, come from the world of imagination and they're played by humans, they're written by humans, and it's in the belief that we invest in these characters that they come to life.

I'm super down with being irresponsible. I'm just trying to make sure my lack of responsibility no longer hurts people.

For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that’s because my parents always treated me as an adult.