That's what I love about movies and TV: You can go anywhere any time and be whoever you want.
A lot of times, gay characters are represented in unrealistic or stereotypical ways.
I was about 15 when I decided that acting was what I wanted to pursue professionally.
It's just as important to be a good human being as it is to be a good actor.
I was definitely always the bigger girl and kind of weird. I didn't make friends very easily and I was a big reader, so I was very antisocial, and I knew that people were judging me.
As I got into high school I sort of came into my own and gained some confidence and, luckily, wasn't really bullied by others.
When you're on stage, you're playing to whoever is in the back of the room, and TV and film is so much more detailed and nuanced, but I think that's what I always wanted to do. As much as I love theater and musical theater and would love to do it again, I really love the subtleties of film and theater acting.
Acting isn't always about the amount of talent you have, or your ability to cry on command. The point is, how well can you take direction? How well can you put aside your own ideas or ego and listen to the ideas of the director and the people above you, while not giving up the passion and drive of that character?
My existence in Hollywood is a political statement, because there are so few women who are plus-sized or above a size 6.
I just think about little me - what it would have meant to me to see a chubby girl in movies and a big girl get the guy and be the princess, be the hero. I think that would've really changed a lot for me.
The idea that I get to kind of redefine what is beautiful and whose story deserves to be told and showcase that you know, big women have love lives and complex colorful lives like everybody else, that's really important to me.
I was always taller than every other boy my age. So, whenever there was one boy who was taller than me I was like, 'Yes. He's the one.' Even if he definitely wasn't.
I think we take our friends for granted a lot in high school. We're so busy worrying about our own problems that we ignore the fact that we have these people who are supporting us and taking care of us like all the time.
People will send me pictures of T-shirts with my face on it and it's nothing that I ever would've imagined in a million years as a kid.
There's this book that I love called 'Eleanor & Park.' It's an incredible story about these two misfit kids who fall in love. I've loved that book for years and I'd be so thrilled if I got to be in an adaptation of that.
I've been a huge Winona Ryder fan for a while. I'm one of four girls, so there are four sisters, so we used to watch 'Little Women' seriously, maybe once a month.
I totally am dorky and weird, and that's fine with me.
I didn't get recognized a whole lot at first, but all of a sudden it just started happening. People would look at me out of the corner of their eye, deciding whether or not they were going to come up to me!
As I got older, I fell more in love with movies and thought it would be incredible to someday be in one.
Being on set is just a unique and surreal experience, and it's one I always dreamed about having. And then I had it.
