Keiynan Lonsdale

I'd only been out for, like, six months before I booked 'Insurgent'. It was my first role in America, and it was a huge movie franchise. All I'd ever hear at the time was how Hollywood treated gay men or queer men, so I was, like, 'Well, I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot before I've even started life here,' you know?

I started writing when I was, like, eleven. We couldn't afford private lessons, so I had to teach myself how to sing through recording songs on GarageBand.

You can live your dreams and wear dresses. You can live your dreams and kiss the one that you love no matter what gender they are.

You can live your dreams, and you can believe in magic. You can live your dreams, and you can be yourself.

I suffered a lot from social anxiety, and being on set was really scary to me. That fear can cause limits in your art and your performance because you're not going all in because there is this little thing in your head.

From, like, two, three years old, I was obsessed with Michael Jackson and just wanted to be on stage with him. And my mum put me in dance classes, but I had a lot of social anxiety and didn't want to be around people; I didn't like to look at anyone in the eye, so that was a difficult thing to get over.

I grew up with my mom, and my mom had six kids, and I was the youngest, but I had a different father than my brothers and sisters, and I only met him when I was ten years old. Then he introduced me to his other children.

My main advice is, if it's something you really want to do, then just go for it.

I think what's really important is valuing friendships and family a lot.

Hearing that you fit into someone's idea of a superhero is a huge confidence builder.

Some people think 'Higher' is about literally getting high, and other people think it's more in a spiritual sense. To me, it's all that. To me, it was like I need to escape from this down state - emotionally, spiritually, mentally, everything. I want to be above this. Wherever we are now. I need to go up.

I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be on stage.