I was always the kid on scholarship, I was a soloist with my company, I'd been working with the symphony since I was 14.

You know, I've always just made the choices on my characters based on my connection to them, and I've made decisions that maybe other people haven't understood; why I passed on something, for instance.

Coming from being a dancer, it was a great way for me to transition into being an actress. I get to really be expressive through my physical self, and that was just a comfortable way for me to start experimenting with how to get my character across.

There's this certain caliber of dancing I was striving for when I was younger, and it's very hard for me to go back and just do it for fun. But I take all other kinds of classes: I take jazz classes, modern classes, and I love doing that instead of going to the gym. The gym is not very much fun.

I love it if a man makes an effort to get to know my parents and sisters. Getting to know the people who matter to me goes a long way.

You're not just writing in a vacuum, and then handing it over to someone else to shoot. You're writing, and then getting feedback from the actor and hearing their voice and how they play things.

Every day on the set, things change. You move things around. The actors are creating the roles and bringing them to life, and bringing the moments to life, as they happen. That's the best thing about television. I think it gets misunderstood, when there's one credit that says, "Written by," because that's certainly not the way it happens, in real life.