One of my favorite memories from growing up in Brazil is being in the kitchen with my family and watching everyone bake and cook.

Growing up eating fruits and vegetables fresh from our farm added a lot to the way I taste and look at food today, and I wanted the same for my kids and other kids.

My waist used to be tiny. I just saw a picture of Miley Cyrus with a little crop top and low pants, and I'm like, 'That was me growing up in Brazil!' I had the typical model body, but after babies, it changed. I look more like a woman.

I'm still learning how to do things - like lining my eyes? Forget it.

Being incarcerated does not mean being devoid of the capacity to learn, grow, and think, and it's critical that prisons provide spaces where learning can be both cultivated and encouraged.

It's funny: I always, as a high school teacher and particularly as a high school yearbook teacher, because yearbook staffs are 90 percent female, I got to sit in and overhear teenage girl talk for many years. I like teenage girls; I like their drama, their foibles. And I think, 'I'll be good with a teenage daughter!'

To be honest, the core reason why I became an actor was that I didn't want to go to school. That's where it started. I hated opening my history books and my English books, but then, of course, you grow older. I went to film school in New York, and that's when you really realize that you have to grow up now. It's not child's play anymore.

I definitely caught a lot of backlash in my situation, not just from students but also from faculty, which was unfortunate, given that I was spending a lot of my time outside school working on a career, which a lot of people didn't really agree with.