I could have gone the route of a lot of these former child actors, but I didn't want that for myself. Like I said, when I was 14 years old, I decided to quit. I didn't ever want to do it again.

Most of the offers I get from Hollywood are for teen comedies. My manager thinks I'm crazy for turning down all that money, but I'm very picky.

I am a collection of thoughts and memories and likes and dislikes. I am the things that have happened to me and the sum of everything I've ever done. I am the clothes I wear on my back. I am every place and every person and every object I have ever come across. I am a bag of bones stuck to a very large rock spinning a thousand miles an hour.

As a senior in high school, you figure out what you want to do with your life. I asked myself if I wanted to get back into acting and thought: 'Yes, but under my own terms and nothing like it was before.'

I dont mind if somebody comes up to me and shakes my hand, but if Im in the middle of a restaurant and somebody asks me for a picture, I can be a jerk and say no, or I can say yes and draw more attention to myself, which is exactly the opposite of what I want.

People still recognize me all the time on the street. The first thing they say when they stop me is, "Where have you been?" The second comment they make is always, "Oh, you've grown up."

I went to high school, which was a good thing because I hadn't interacted with many people my age, and I didn't really have friends. I had a million acquaintances and no friends.