Life is so much easier when I allow myself to be myself and go with the flow.

I had a hard time on TV, the last time on television, so I wasn't sure that I wanted to do that again. But, I really am a big fan of Jenji and I knew this is her next thing, so I read it. And once I read the script, I was really, really impressed that there was a woman who was the centerpiece of her own story, and that she was in the center of her own narrative.

I had an unorthodox high-school experience; I shifted around to different schools. When I got to college and met Larry Sacharow, who ran the theatre department [at Fordham University in NYC], he was the first person to say ‘I believe in you.’ At that point, I just needed someone to say ‘I see you, I get you, let’s go.’ It’s an amazing thing to borrow someone else’s confidence in you; it can change your life.

It's as interesting to me as someday getting to play in some beautiful period piece where the costumes are from a completely different era. This feels as extreme as that, and that's really liberating. It's really liberating to just go 180 from what my life is like. I love that! I love not having to think about clothes. I wanted to wear a uniform when I was in high school, but I couldn't. I was like, "It would be so much easier!"

So often, we're expected to maintain some sort of standard - that won't get you where you need to go.

I'm the girl who will show up in jeans no matter what - but the jeans can get fancier and fancier.

It takes a lot of bravery to be authentic and honest and to take that social mask off in order to connect with another human being. So much of what makes us who we are is smoothed away online. And what truly connects us is the wrinkles, not the smoothness.