I am a feminist - I just think the label reflects my beliefs - but, you know, we say 'Rookie' is a website for teenage girls, not a feminist website for teenage girls. That's not because I'm not proud to call myself a feminist, but when you're calling attention to a project, you can very easily be pigeonholed by choosing certain identifiers.

In high school, I was doing my magazine 'Rookie' and a lot of writing, and I became a little less interested in the fashion world. I was approached by an agent for writing, and I said I wanted to act as well. They sent me scripts, and then I got my first Broadway play, 'This Is Our Youth'.

Before 'This is Our Youth', I did a week of table reading 'Airline Highway' at Steppenwolf in Chicago while the author, Lisa D'Amour, workshopped it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is mysterious; you don't ever truly know where it is coming from, so don't edit yourself line by line. Don't get in your own way. Whatever is truly there at the core, that is your voice.

I'm just so glad that I started acting when I did because I had this wealth of life experience. I don't know if I'd have been able to handle it had I gone out to L.A. at 22.

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one's aim.

French existentialism is an unhelpful philosophy in which to couch modern feminism: born from the ravages of the Second World War, it is a cynical, individualistic school of thought that posits the self and personal choice as the measure of life's entire meaning.

I grew up in a pretty economically safe, physically safe household, and, you know, now my life is defined by other people's trauma and by other people's emotional experience with it, and I think I'm richer for that, frankly.