I don't want to play the girlfriend who's there because she's the girlfriend. And. That's. Her. Job. I want to play women and girls who are active and strong and who have a character arc and make decisions and have a rich background.

The variable that really boosts your performance is the actors around you.

I would like to trade places with my sister. I think that would be really interesting. She's three years younger than me, and she's a gymnast. She goes to gymnastics, like, every single day, and that's a whole other world to me, and I think that would be very interesting.

Sometimes, when I watch a movie where teenagers are played by actors that are 26 years old and look perfect, it makes you wonder what story is actually being told.

All the kids looked up to my father because he was known to be that dude who knocks people out.

Grissom comes from a place where we know he had a deaf mother, he was raised in a silent household, on some level, had a father who potentially was not around and he learned what he knew by himself in the back yard, with bugs and animals. He's not comfortable being a supervisor and that's his problem.

I had family and friends back home. Just because I could potentially feel alone in Los Angeles, that didn't mean I was alone.

I am a mother with kids in the public schools. People should know that. I'm not just some policy maker who's totally detached from the rest of the community.