Before High School Musical, I wanted to be a nitty-gritty actress. And High School Musical came along, and, I was like, "Oh my God, fun!" But the more we did it, the more prude I became.... When I am around kids and they come up to me, of course I am going to act a certain way, but at the end of the day, I'm doing this for myself. I'm going to be doing movies kids can't watch.

Movies and acting are so much fun. I love playing different characters and doing different genres. It's all still very interesting to me.

You can't be a kid in show business. You will not survive.

I feel like I've been fortunate enough that I've gotten to meet and work with some really passionate people.

I try to stay grounded by keeping the people around me as a small group; people who I love and trust. I try to explore and be outside, and I'm a very grateful person so that keeps me grounded. And as much as I do enjoy social media, I try to back off it a bit when I'm out and about.

I feel like a lot of people think of Hollywood as being fake, but it's only perceived that way because it takes 10 people to make someone look the way that they do. In reality, they're there because they are doing what they're passionate about.

I have a toy poodle, Shadow. She's a little whippersnapper! And I love little monkeys.