Even though I was performing all the time as an actress and I was doing all of these plays as a kid, there's a vulnerability about being a musician that you don't get [when] you perform somebody else's work.

I started playing music when I was 18. My heart was just broken so badly that I decided that I really wanted to start playing music. It felt like the only thing that I could do in response to that. And I've been playing ever since.

I had no kind of work ethic and I always felt that music - especially rock 'n' roll - was a more for boys.

I guess part of my ambivalence about pursuing music as well as acting is that acting is already one of the most difficult careers to create for yourself, I must be insane to embark on creating two careers in two of the most difficult fields. But I have really different ambitions with music; I just want to stay in love with music. I want it to continue to be a means of expression for me that feels like it's mine, and something that feels community-based.

Growing up with my dad being a musician, it seemed like a male centric world to me. I just didn't know many girls playing guitar.

You don't have that interaction with the audience when you're acting for film; you're kind of acting in a vacuum. You're acting for a disinterested grip who just wants to reply to his wife about what time he'll be home for dinner. Everyone else on a film set is also there because they're paid to be there. They're not there because they're passionate about what you do necessarily.

It takes a lot of courage to be a performer.