I had a scholarship to Stanford because I won three California Speech tournaments. Before I started Stanford, I told my mother I wanted to take a bus into Hollywood and see if I could get an agent.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I came out to California to live with my mom in Orange County for a while, and then I came up to Hollywood. I had just turned nineteen. I took an acting class at Playhouse West and decided, 'Wow, I think I can do this!' I studied really hard for three years before I got an agent.
I got some funky scholarships to play soccer and did well in my SATs, so I went off to college and then grad school but found that that wasn't me. My family, relieved I seemed to have come to my senses, were happy to let me go to film school.
When I decided that I might want to do acting for a living - I don't know where it really came from, since there was no school play or any of that - my mom gave me her blessing. I had to get a scholarship - that was the only way I could have gone to drama school.
I trained as a singer before I was an actor. I was a kid singer, I went to theater and choir school, and then I got music scholarships throughout my education. And that's what I was going to do. And then I took a left turn and went to drama school and became an actor.
I played football, honestly, to get a scholarship.
I was an English major at UCLA when I was 18, and then I left after a year to start acting. I was educating myself during that time.
I was in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on a scholarship. I was - still am - an artist. They were looking for an actor for 'Take a Giant Step,' and a producer liked my look and asked if I could act. I said, 'Yep!' Then I got into acting more or less just to make money for paints and canvases.
I had been accepted to film school, but my parents couldn't afford it, and yet they made too much money for me to get a scholarship.
I was president of the schools in junior high and high school, got a scholarship to New York University, played a little basketball, and was a celebrity.
I wanted to go to New York and be a stage actress, doing things like Chekhov. None of that happened, and then I went to L.A. and an agent said, 'I think you belong in commercials and TV.' So I did that and got some opportunities that I absolutely love.