I think for everyone it's good to have your own personal work on a character and a film before you even start rehearsing, to have an inner life.

It's such a private thing - 'my process' - I can just say that the work that I do is like therapy between me and the character.

When I was little, I put on plays for my family at Sunday dinner, and I would direct them and have all my cousins, my brother, and my best friends in it. I was a very imaginative and theatrical child and wasn't afraid of being in front of a camera. It was like make-believe to me.

When you spend your entire life as a child actress, being told where to go and where to stand, you're performing constantly for people. It definitely breeds the kind of person who's dependent on other people's approval.

I don't gossip about myself.

A lot of moms give their kids line reads. My mom wasn't put in that position because I always had an acting teacher helping with the feelings rather than how to say something.

I'm not a very 'this is planned out' person when I get to set. 'This is how I'm going to do it' - I'm never like that.