You began working when you were still young, basically a kid. Year by year, as technology continues to progress, it seems as though American society has become more and more obsessed with its stars, especially younger ones who may or may not be getting into trouble, trouble that is almost immediately pointed out and posted on a blog. Has it been hard to grow up when your personal life is half-way posted on IMDb at any given moment?
I’ve been bitten by it, and I’ve also been very fortunate because, unlike a lot of the kids in my age range in this business, I don’t work in Hollywood. I have spent every summer on location and I shoot my show on location, so I am home little enough that people don’t know my schedule and where I go and what I do. If I get photographed, 90 percent of the time, it’s at an event. The small piece of my personal life that did become part of the news media was odd because you can’t control how long or how much they’re going to talk about something; you can’t control their accuracy. If anything, I’m thankful that I have had so much time outside of that machine on location, because I have definitely learned that lesson.
Like it or not, the world constantly has its eyes on hot, young female stars—the Lindsay Lohans of the land. Is it difficult to be taken seriously as a young actress when certain scandalous ladies out there in a very similar line of work are making a lurid spectacle of themselves?
What I think makes it difficult to not be taken seriously is falling on your face drunk all the time or running around without your underwear on. It’s not that difficult to get dressed, and it’s not that difficult to keep yourself under a level of control. I have nothing against going out and having a great night with friends. Everyone wants to go out and have a couple of cocktails and dance and be silly and take some time off. But I think you have to choose what your priorities are. When you don’t show up to work or when you show up late, it’s not just your reputation that gets affected, it affects the 10 grips on your show. If you show up four hours late, they are four hours late to come home and they can’t put their kids to bed. That is the part I don’t think a lot of people take into consideration. A movie or TV set is a cohesive machine, every part works together, and if one person is selfish enough to throw that off, it affects every other person there.
It sounds like it’s satisfying to not be a part of that “young Hollywood” crowd that carouses about the town half-cocked and half-naked all the time.
I appreciate that when I am considered part of “young Hollywood,” it’s because of my work, not my ability to shotgun beers. That is how I want to be represented, not by my social habits. I love my job, I love acting, I love making movies, I love becoming someone else for 10 hours a day for the joy of finding someone else’s psychology. If I plan on doing this for the rest of my life, if I plan to still be working until I’m 60, I can’t blow it now. I’d rather do it slowly and properly than explode for being a party girl and not have a career in two years, it’s not worth it for me.
It’s one thing to see somebody a little tipsy coming out of a club and having a good time every once in a while. But it’s a whole other thing to see somebody completely wasted every time, every night, at every Hollywood hot spot. I think it becomes a desire to be part of the in-crowd or something like that. I’m amused by it because the people who others might see or read about partying every night, I almost always see them when I go out occasionally. You can go when you want to go, you don’t have to go every night to guarantee you’re going to be let behind the velvet rope. I think you’re right, I think it’s about a need to be validated. I’d rather be validated by a director telling me that we nailed it during filming than by feeling that I have access to anywhere I want to go.
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