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Like every girl, I felt amazing pressure to look like the popular girls, but no one told me the popular girls were all air brushed in magazines.

I wasn't the most popular girl in school by any means.

I was never into the popular school or clique or anything. Then I started doing movies when I was in high school, so then I got popular. Then the girls paid attention to you who didn't before.

I was never looking to be popular. The trade-off for me in seeking other people's opinions is the potential to help that you get in the media. And we don't always do that, but when we do, it's a beautiful thing.

I have always lived the way I wanted regardless of whether or not it was popular.

I was obsessed with being popular in high school and never achieved it. There's photos from our high school musicals, and I'm comically in the deep background, wearing a beggar's costume.

It's funny because there's a part of me that, if something is popular, I sort of become a defiant teenager about it. Like, 'Oh, I'm not gonna like that because everybody likes it.'

What's funny is that the idea of popularity - even the use of the word 'popular' - is something that had been mostly absent from my life since junior high. In fact, the hallmark of life after junior high seemed to be the shedding of popularity as a central concern.

I've never had issues with popularity. I was always a popular guy... I've always had friends and loved ones and everything, so it wasn't like, 'Oh man, I gotta fill some void that was left by high school.' I had a great high-school experience.

I just did what I did and I still am. It makes you unpopular, maybe for a lifetime, but I'd rather do that than be popular and doubt what I am.