I also feel like the kinds of jobs I want right now - I consider them aspirational. I want to raise the bar for myself, and I am in this interesting spot where I do get offered a lot of things, but frankly, the majority of the things I get offered I'm not really interested in doing. I want to do the things that I have to fight for.

I was definitely an extroverted personality at a young age and theater was an outlet for me to channel that energy.

We did monologues and scenes, and New York I did a scene from Amadeus and a monologue from Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead by Eric Bogosian, and then in L.A. I switched the scene to This is Our Youth and did the same monologue. I was spiky-haired, super skinny. A lot of people were like, "You should come here and do a sitcom." That was the feedback that I got. Obviously it was quite a different journey than the one I've actually had, but I just listened to people.

I love supporting emerging voices, and new writers and directors. I love engaging an audience in a way that doesn't have to involve me, personally, and yet still generates an experience for groups of people.

There's nothing so freeing as going to rehearsal and having that experience.

I remember standing outside of the dorm by the little terrace. I was going to do this job that I wasn't 100 percent certain of, which ended up being much more fun than I expected [in So Notorious].

I had just gotten Heroes, and I had just found out that I was going to be doing [Star] Trek, and I thought it was probably a good idea for me to create an infrastructure that would allow me to do my own work and put my stuff into the world.