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I became an actor so I didn't have to be myself.

I made the character as much of myself as I could.

I was thrust into a really lofty, enviable, but isolated position with 'Princess Diaries' in that I could carry a film before I really knew if I could act.

But the one thing that I did do was establish myself as a good actor.

I just happened to step into acting. And now I can't imagine myself doing anything else.

You have to remember now, I was not being terribly successful at going solo.

I like to use all of myself, and acting wasn't doing that.

I acted at school but got very bad parts - things that they'd made up in Shakespeare plays like 'Guard 17' - so I wrote plays and gave myself parts, then I wrote sketches, then I did stand-up. Even in the school nativity I was the emu in the manger.

I wasn't perfect and didn't have it together. I felt alone. So through acting, I decided to be a shape shifter and with every role become the character instead of being myself. It meant about 10 years of no one knowing I was the same person in every movie.