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I wanted to be a child actor so bad that every day I'd beg my parents if I could audition, but my mom said, 'Not until you can drive yourself to auditions.'

Even when I was little and going on auditions, it was clear who was there because they wanted to be there, and who was there because their stage parents were making them be there. There was a major difference.

I went on countless auditions. I begged my parents until I finally was allowed to be in a theatrical play when I was 13. It was the most important thing in my life.

When I was little, my mom was an actress, and she still is now, and she'd go on commercial auditions, and if they needed a mom and a son, she'd take me along, and that's how I got started.

I was not a child star. I was more like a young auditioner.

I don't feel I was ever a 'famous' child actor. I was just a working actor who happened to be a kid. I was never really in a hit show until I was a teenager with West Wing playing First Daughter Zoey Bartlet. In a way, that was my saving grace - not being a star on a hit show. It kept me working and kept me grounded.

I was an introverted kid; I liked my time alone. And the rest of my family is pretty extroverted, so I felt like a bit of an oddball. They're very gregarious and charming and charismatic people. I always felt like I was struggling as a young person. I think everyone was very surprised to hear that I wanted to be an actor.

My parents were reluctant to let me start auditioning until I was at least a little bit emotionally stable - I'm still working on that! And so I started when I was fifteen, and it was the best thing that could have happened to me in terms of being able to focus my crazy teenage energy into something good.

I didn't want to become an actress because the competition with my mother would have been to much to live up to.