I wanted to get everything right. I was super nerdy and academic. I got so much satisfaction out of getting good grades.

Young women are now looking at me for cues. That's definitely been a responsibility. But I feel like I was ready to take on something like this because I wanted to be challenged and I wanted to be afraid, and that's definitely what it's done for me.

You're hot for two seconds, and you're struggling to get work again. If it were easy, I don't think that's a good place for an artist to work from.

My brothers and I always did improv stuff in our basement with our friends; we're super nerds, and that was our way of spending a Friday night.

I think that's why it's difficult for women when they watch TV and we see one version of a woman who is attached at the hip to a guy, and that's kind of her whole thing. You kind of go, 'I don't relate to this, I don't feel this.' You know? Maybe somebody does, but not everyone. That's the other thing about storytelling, is you can't represent everybody. You know, you can't seek to do that. You have to tell stories that you're interested in talking about and characters that intrigue you.

I'm an actor and I like having attention. There's a reason I like being on stage and in front of the camera, and it's that interaction.

I think the fact that my parents are still, "Hey, great, that's great!" and not, "We need you to do this and be a star!" - it was never like that. My mom's a translator, my dad's a woodworker; that's the world I grew up in, that's the world I'm most comfortable in. The whole idea of Hollywood or any of that other stuff that unfortunately goes along with film, that wasn't part of my upbringing, thankfully.