I try to bring elements of my own personality to every character I’ve played, but I think I’m pretty similar to the character I’m playing now. The biggest departure would have to have been Freaks and Geeks Sara, who was this sort of subordinate and shy girl.
I think it’s necessary to identify with anything – with any character you play, there’s got to be something in common, so you can link up to that person, even if it’s like one tiny thing. But it’s equally fun to play somebody completely different, and trying to find what that thing is to make it.
When you get seen in one particular way, it can be paralyzing. You start to believe it’s all you can do.
I never get recognized for ‘Mean Girls.’ I can be walking around with Daniel Franzese, who’s in the movie and a friend of mine, and people will come up to him and start freaking out and have no idea who I am.
I think there’s something very lovely and hilarious about exploring the particular neuroses of the female mind. It’s just not the same thing with men. I mean, there are exceptions, but for the most part, women beat themselves up in their heads more. They overanalyze stuff far more than men do.
I’m really awkward when people recognize me. I’m not good at it, and for the most part it hadn’t happened to me until ‘True Blood,’ and then, all of a sudden, it started happening all the time.
If you meet a girl who has slept with 100 guys, you will think something of her you wouldn’t think of a guy who slept with 100 girls.
It took me a long time to realize that being a girl is so much more powerful than being a guy, but I really saw myself as boy for a long while.
When you’re shooting a network television show it inevitably starts airing a few episodes in, and depending on the ratings and the response from the public, you find yourself tweaking your performance or the scripts go in a different direction.
You’d be surprised. Girls like sensitive, namby-pamby guys.
I’ve been a feminist since the day I was born. I wanted to play football. I didn’t want to play with dolls; I wanted to play with boys and didn’t understand why I couldn’t.
I think if a girl who liked ‘Party Down’ found out that her boyfriend liked ‘Two and a Half Men,’ she would break up with him.
For the past few years, I’ve been more selective than I have any right to be, but I think that’s finally starting to work in my favor. I think I get way too much credit for making what people consider to be smart choices, but it’s only because I made a decision to stop worrying about making money.