I have a career I am proud of as a child actor. I'm not running away from it or embarassed with anything I did.

There are always moments of despair when you get close to jobs and lose them at the last second. It feels like getting punched in the stomach. You feel like, 'Why do I do this?' Then you go to bed, get up the next day and forget about it.

I feel like I'm a fighter. I've fought my whole life to get to where I'm at. I like fight movies. When someone gets knocked down, I like to root for him to succeed.

I'm just not a quitter and I just never, ever give up. I was forced to adapt because if I didn't, I was losing inspiration only doing what I was doing.

I worked with creative people who were very demanding of me, and they helped me reach performances that I never could have gotten on my own without being pushed and having trust in them. And so I know the best way to get the best performance of an actor, and that's not to coddle them or to baby them. It's to help them; it's to push them.

Nashville feels like a big little town to me. It's got lots of culture and lots of interesting things to do and lots of interesting people. At the same time, it feels very small and tight-knit and very close. Everyone feels like they know each other.

An actor is like an instrument, tune them, play them the right way.