By the time I was 16, I was someone to reckon with. I was so eager to repudiate any connection with any immigrant race, I would go above and beyond. I was desperate to belong to something. That was my drive as a teenager.
The current concept of prom just seems so empty. Teenagers get dressed up to go to a dance at a fancy location. It encourages social inclusion or exclusion based on your ability or inability to snag a date.
I'm a teenager, but I'm independent - I have my own apartment, I have my own life. And I think I have learned more than any of those teenagers have in school. I learned to be responsible, leaving my family and coming here alone.
I missed out on everything. Sometimes on the street I see teenagers hanging out and going to the movies, going to concerts, and I get so jealous.
When we moved to Europe when I was a teenager, I really did not want to go. I was happy in my school, with my friends, but looking back on it, it was the best experience I've ever had. We traveled every weekend. I experienced incredible new cultures, museums, cities, and it really opened up my eyes.
When I was a teenager, the actors I was really into were Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. I saw 'Rumble Fish' on my 16th birthday, and around the same time, it was 'Falcon and the Snowman' and 'Bad Boys' from Sean Penn.
In 'George Lopez', I played Veronica who's a bratty 18-year-old, and so I feel like it's much easier for me to play that because I feel like a late bloomer. It wasn't difficult or challenging at all because it's not like I haven't been a teenager.
No matter where you are or where you grow up, you always go through the same awkward moments of being a teenager and growing up and trying to figure out who you are.
And I was the only black kid in my school for almost all of my childhood, until I was a teenager. So imagine, if you will, being 6 feet tall by third grade, so essentially being a living maypole.