It wasn't until I was in college that I even realized how much I loved film and started to appreciate acting, this beautiful medium of artistic expression. All I wanted to do was go to college, and I thought I wanted to be a teacher.

That's something that rationally and logically I can't try to figure out, how somebody "transitions" so rapidly and so drastically, but I don't worry about it now.

I got into cooking and I went and cooked in Italy. I became a doula for a while. I built stone walls one summer, and I read a lot, and I swam a lot, and I spent a lot of time thinking.

I was never that famous, but I do think going to college and really getting away from the business and taking a true break is incredibly, incredibly important if you start acting at a young age.

I got to college in '99, and I went to study literature and writing, and so within a couple years we had Bush elected, 9/11, we were at war, so I was sort of having my political and spiritual awakening at the same time I was becoming an adult, and that's a lot of stuff at once. I became very focused on the state of the world, and I started studying that stuff more, and I just had a real identity crisis. I couldn't even really just study literature.

It's fun to play somebody who's kind of struggling.

Theres plenty of great independent films to do, but you cant support yourself making independent film as an actress.