It depends on the scripts and the character and just everybody involved, the other actors and directors. It's just a gut feeling when you find something, you're like, 'Yes, I want to sink my teeth into that.'

Those situations are weird. You're in a room, and I knew they already loved this guy [for the role], so you're like, "OK, this is a different dynamic."

As long as you're fierce and you have that inner confidence with yourself, you can get through anything.

I guess I have sort of an atypical relationship with my mom for someone my age, because I think I started so young with the music thing and I had my parents always on the road with me. So at a time when I think I should have been rebelling like in high school, they were actually my best friends.

When I was first starting out in the music industry, I was always coupled in the same sentence with Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera - and I was probably the worst of them. I think a lot of people back then thought, 'Mandy Moore... she'll probably go back to where she came from in a year.'

We live in a cynical world now, and it's nice to be part of entertainment that is hopeful and heartfelt and wears its heart on its sleeve, but isn't saccharine. It's real. It's grounded.

I travel the world visiting global health programs as an ambassador for the global health organization, PSI, and sometimes the disconnect I see is truly striking: people can get cold Coca Cola, but far too infrequently malaria drugs; most own mobile phones, but don't have equal access to pre-natal care.