I made a joke with my sister... I said, "I don't know what's more nerve-wracking, job insecurity or job security." There's opportunities and things you compromise with both. When I had endless freedom of schedule, or when I commit to a movie for two months, then I could manage my music and go on the road.

In acting, you have a writer, a director, a character - you're working through being another person - and the irony I always tell people is when I acted early on as a teenager, it actually kept me out of trouble.

I knew I could live no other way, that the one thing I wanted was to act and do it well.

I never think I have success even when I have it, for better or for worse.

All that evilness is always just from pain and fear, and that's what I've come to understand. I've come to understand people now. Before, I would blame them for treating me in such a naïve way. I don't hate evil, vicious people anymore.

Art is the only thing that helps people stay alive, and it is the only thing that has allowed people to create joy in this insane, suppressive universe. And art is the only thing that they can't get rid of. They've tried, but ultimately they can't stamp it out.

When I first started, I wrote some songs with Linda Perry. She's so instrumental in a lot of artist's lives, listening to you and then helping you write songs that are you, that bring the most of what you are out, whereas a lot of producers might put their stamp on you. I gained confidence because I'm less of a straight-up, traditional vocalist.