George Clooney sort of lost his ‘George Clooney-ness’ the first day I met him. He’s not George Clooney in my eyes – he’s George from Kentucky with an awesome, awesome heart.
For me acting is a passion and an art, and always will only be that. I don’t have any rules when it comes to acting. I’ll do anything. But it depends on the script. Either I’ll have passion for the project or I won’t. It’s got to fuel me.
Acting is fun and I refuse to get involved in the semantics and the politics of strategy and breaking out of something or doing something because you need to do something else. For me it’s all about what fuels my soul and if I’m passionate about a screenplay then that’s what I’ll do next.
A quarter of my life has been spent on ‘Secret Life.’ I’m 20 and I’ve been doing it for five years, so I think the best moments have been when all the cast members get to work together and we get to collaborate and share experiences. We all grew up together.
The day the process of acting becomes something that I dread is the end. Obviously, why would you do something that you hate? I won’t do that.
I always find it fun to read a script and then find the messages in the script because I believe every story has them.
I think you have to love yourself and you have to have a strong sense of self-love in order to really show up for other people, because if you love yourself, you’re not questioning your own mind any more and you are really able to be present and available for others.
Romance is very particular to each individual and a very personalised thing.
I want to see and taste and experience it all, I am curious by nature. I would actually really love to go to New Zealand.
I’ve been acting since I was young because I wanted to, not because my parents wanted me to. My dad is a principal and mom is a middle school counselor, so acting was like, “Eh, whatever. As long as you get good grades.” It’s really fun, and nothing more.
Nothing really attracts me to the film industry, to be perfectly honest. I look at acting as an art, and that’s all it is for me. It’s just fun.
I’m generally a very annoyingly positive person, in real life. I think that might have something to do with my gravitation towards angry human beings on screen.
I love playing darker roles, or roles with meat. I feel very comfortable in that environment. I don’t know why. I don’t know what that says about me. I really enjoy doing complicated characters.
I was between 14 and 15, when I went through my angsty period. I was never very rebellious. I never did things to rebel against society, or against my parents, but I did think I knew everything. Then, one day, I woke up and realized I was a dot in this universe, and that quickly dissipated.
I’m not an actor who approaches films doing a lot of research. I do zero research, unless it’s a film where I’m playing a mock version of someone who already existed. Then, you’ve got to do a lot of research.
I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That’s a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget.
So many times, you get a script and it says, “And then, the character cries,” and you read the lines and think, “That would never make me cry. Those lines are so untruthful.” My approach is just to be honest to the situation.
People always ask about the transition from TV show to a movie, but it felt like just going to a different school. You don’t really notice the transition, when you’re in the moment.
You have a pre-conceived notion of what you want the scene to be, but once you get there, that goes out the window and it turns out to be a way that you never imagined.
I think every script has meaningful messages no matter what it is, because inherently life is full of meaning and every single day we lean a lesson.
I think the best way to become a character is by osmosis as opposed to thinking directly about stuff. The more material that you have and understand and have a going in, then the more complex your character and the understanding of your character will be.