I was a handful growing up.

When you choose to be an actor, you are going against the odds.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

But even if I’m left high and dry at the end of this wild journey, just taking it is a great feeling.

I’m opening up my heart to the idea of dating. It’s funny – my friends would always come to me for romantic advice. I know nothing, and things have changed since I was dating in high school! I’m really trying hard to spend this time working on myself.

If I’m left high and dry at the end of this wild journey, just taking it is a great feeling.

Inspiration is the key to everything.

Once I took a bus from my home in Maryland to Philadelphia to live on the streets with some musicians for a few weeks, and then my parents sent me to boarding school at Andover to shape me up.

When you’re a working actor and you’re happy to be one, you can’t focus all your energy on acting because you will go crazy. You have to focus as much energy as you can away from yourself.

I was a tomboy and I didn’t have a bunch of brothers but I always wanted them and so I sort of adopted a few of my great friends to be my brother.

I got an internship with the casting director of The Girl Next Door. I would hold the clipboard and help them in their casting sessions and get them lunch.

I’m now convinced that I’m a doctor. I mean, if someone says they have a pain, I’m like, ‘Well, that’s your spleen.’

I fell in love with theater there, and after graduation I moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting.

I’m a natural blonde, but I feel like a brunette. I feel like people treat me now how I should be treated. People used to be shocked, when I was blond, that I wasn’t stupid.

I went through a phase when I was 13 where I would only fall in love with people over the age of 19 or 20. I never had a real relationship with any of these people, but it was definitely the guy I wanted to hang out with and wanted to go on trips with. I would be like, ‘But, Daddy, he’s a musician!’.

I was a handful growing up.

The mark of a good marriage is partnership and continuing to feel inspired by your spouse. I had that with Tao. But the end is not necessarily the tragedy. Staying in a relationship that is no longer working is the tragedy. Living unhappily – that’s the tragedy.

Now I’m doing a film festival for kids and writing a script about a kidnapped journalist in Afghanistan.

From a very early age, I made my decisions based on careers that I admire. The one thing that all the actresses I love have in common is that they have diversity in their careers.