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.

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.

John Cassavetes' films have really altered the way I see film and acting and storytelling and emotion and love, so I see acting as this incredible revealing of human nature and this means of telling our story, sharing our voice with the world. That's what acting is for me. It allows for people to experience things through the character, through the story.

I'm attracted to stories that excite my imagination, stories that, as I'm reading the script, I feel it, I can see it, I can hear the characters. I'm attracted to characters that are real, that tap into something inside me that I haven't explored yet.

Dance has always been a really important thing for me, so being able to physically express the characters through music and dance is like another layer to things.

I'm incredibly close to my family. I have two younger brothers; they're both artists and actors, and their work and the way they see the world inspires me.

I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.