I'm going to be a better actor, or I'm going to try to be a better actor. I'm going to try to be a better musician. I'm going to be an artist instead of just this one thing.

The idea of choosing something that you want to be, that you identify as, at a young age and pursuing that without question - for me that was acting.

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.

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.

The classical music scene was completely unfamiliar to me. A lot of people think of older generations and stuffiness. But it's not. You listen to the Overture of 1812, and you can hear a rock n' roll catharsis.

There's something really natural to me about being what they call in the business a "hyphenate." Being a musician-actor or writer-musician-actor.

Perhaps like attracts like, and that's why I found myself in a circle of women who are so passionate about making music.