It's OK to want to look and feel your best. It's OK to work at being attractive, whatever that means to you. And it's also OK to not expect to be defined by that. It's OK to be powerful in every way: to be big, to take up space. To breathe and thrive.
My go-to gifts are scarves from my friend Matin Maulawizada's nonprofit organization, Afghan Hands, which supports disenfranchised women in Afghanistan. In exchange for their beautiful embroidery, the women are given financial aid and classes in math and literacy. The scarves are all stunning and one of a kind.
Acting is a humiliating job, from start to finish.
There's certainly something very uncomfortable about the voyeurism involved in being in the press, being an actor, where people have a seemingly insatiable curiosity about, you.
Growing up in New York City, I was always encouraged to question authority, and I think I confused patriotism with jingoism.
I could truly have gone through life thinking that women were these venomous creatures. Turns out, they're not.
When I was 18 I went to college for two years and didn't work for a year which was essential for me, because my identity had been so influenced by my being an actor and I think I just needed to discover what it was to be myself, divorced from all that responsibility.
What I needed was a connection to life that was real and lasting.
Maybe philosophy - I love talking about ideas. Or maybe art history. I was thinking about psychology, then I got really afraid because everybody says it's terribly boring.
I would sign on for projects that were meant to shoot in July, and then they would postponed and they would bleed into the following semester, and then I'd take a semester off, and then the movie would collapse.
I think because I am as earnest as I am, people were accepting of my evolving into a certified, legitimate, and grown up and I did take three years off.
I really liked Yale, although it was extremely intimidating. When I visited the campus, I was hiding behind trees, I felt so unworthy.
I know, it's true. I've played these tortured teenagers. I can't wait to shed that image.
I have this home in New York, I have a long-term relationship with my boyfriend, who's from Australia, and I had this business that I had maintain. Even though I wasn't actively shooting, there's a lot of peripheral work.
I hadn't been free from adult responsibilities since I was 12, and I needed to experience that. I really needed to just be a kid again.
I get a little jealous of these actor boys. They walk into a club, and in two seconds flat there are swarms of girls who are wanting so badly to touch them or just say hello. That's not the case with me, or any other girl I know.
I finally realized that yeah I did want to be an actor and it wasn't out of habit, but I needed to grow up for myself and then kind of re-enter the industry with a sound understanding of what my sensibilities and my values are as a relatively formed human being.
However, I'm at a very comfortable place in my career and celebrity, in that I don't have to audition as extensively as I used to for roles but yet I'm not immediately recognizable.
Growing up, I wanted desperately to please, to be a good girl.
Fame doesn't end loneliness.
