When I was young, there weren't any teenage girls I could relate to in film. They were all put in boxes: the virginal good girl, the really sarcastic asexual one. I wanted to do something that represented how I felt then.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Material Girls was so different for me, I'd never done a teen movie.
It sounds so negative of me to say, but I don't feel like there were many coming-of-age films when I was growing up. I think that when I was a teenager, I felt really misrepresented in the teenage roles that I was watching onscreen. Especially in women.
Teenage girls in television and film, in my experience, oftentimes are portrayed as either the sweet, innocent virgin or the super-sexy, experienced, town bicycle. There never seems to be an in-between. I think most girls are somewhere in between those two tropes.
I knew I wanted to make a movie that hadn't really existed in a while in terms of being a teenager.
At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!
I wasn't one of those girls who always dreamed of being an actress. I went to a normal school and then these film auditioners turned up when I was nine. Then I just fell into this whirlwind.
'Virgin Suicides' was such a big movie to me as a teenage girl. It blew me away.
Now, all the movies are for teenagers. It's very difficult for an actress to find really deep, beautiful characters to play.
In the past I'd always felt like 'the girl' in the show or the movie. On 'Friday Night Lights' there were a bunch of girls, and I was the woman. Initially there was a little struggle with my identity around that. But now there's a sense of ease.
I always remember responding very emotionally to film. I had a lot of lonely time on my hands because I wasn't really the best-looking kid in my town and I sort of pined after girls. I had to sort of immerse myself in the arts because girls weren't particularly interested in me.