Aleksa Palladino

For me writing and acting all comes out of the same place, a compulsion to review and connect to something. For me they are more similar than different.

I think in L.A., in terms of the music scene, it's a really strange place. It's really hard to get the feeling that something's happening, or the feeling that something can make it out of there.

When I was a teenager, if you'd asked me, I would have said I was in a relationship with New York City. It was my first real love.

Even though New York may be a more inspiring city, I get more inspired thinking of L.A., in a way. My life there was so much more simple in mind, and quiet.

Everyone in my family is an artist. Both my parents are painters and my mom's an opera singer. I was never shown any other way to process life.

One of the benefits to television is that you're with these characters for years, you know them so well.

Your crew becomes your family and you trust the director and the other actors on the set, and it's a very safe place.

I think children in general have a very hard time - at least I did - expressing any pain because I didn't want to hurt the people that I loved.