My only after-school job before I got into acting was babysitting. I had younger brothers and sisters.
I've never been like Angelina Jolie, who at one time was spewing out this prototype Bad Girl stuff for people to consume. I've never boxed myself in that way. People can create boxes for me by all means, but it doesn't mean I'm going to step inside them.
Nobody would know it to look at me, but the movies I liked as a kid were musicals - 'All That Jazz,' 'Hair,' 'Fame,' 'Annie,' all that stuff - that's where my little youthful imagination was.
Being an actor is like being a bass player: one of the component parts to the collective hole.
I always liken myself to the bearded lady. Because I'm an actress turned musician, a woman doing male-dominated rock & roll... I'm the oddity at the freak show, you know?
My first tour I did was The Warped Tour, and I was likening myself to the bearded lady at the circus because not only was I an actor touring, doing rock n' roll, but I was also a female front person making really muscular, male-dominated rock music.
Being beautiful can be a curse, especially if you want to be an artist and create.
The old footage of my dad, I always knew we were cut from the same cloth, because my dad was such a renegade and always marched to the beat of his own drum. To see where we were both dancing and being silly together, it's too beautiful for words. I was really happy to have that.
Although I missed home, North Carolina is a spectacular place to spend four months. Wilmington has a great downtown area. It is not too small town or too big city. The people were really welcoming and nice. The weather was lovely.
My dad instilled in me to naturally question all authority. I don't follow anything blindly. That's religion, cops, doctors, schools, you name it.
My first boyfriend was a surfer. We bonded over loving the sun, Depeche Mode, and The Cure.
The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.
Success is a nice by-product but what I really want is work.
I sort of got lucky in that I was able to carve a niche for myself.
The thing is, I want to play real characters and not all girls can be pretty. The thing is, you get these girls who say 'I'm a character actor' then you see them in a role and nothing has really changed but the outfit.
In my heart of hearts, I'm a character actress, whereas other people play their one strength.
Over time, I've loved jazz, Miles Davis and Chet Baker, then Janis and Jimi and Creedence, then classic rock.
I get lonely - I'm not going to lie about that... I kind of signed up in my mind that I'm giving myself wholeheartedly, full-throttle to my creative life, and I don't want to be distracted.
I think in my late 20s, I was starting to enter that realm of complacency, which is the most terrifying place I can imagine as an artist. I felt time creeping up on me.
The praise for 'Cape Fear' will help me work more artfully - I can work with real artists, like Robert De Niro and the directors, and then go to artland, which is the best land to be in in this world.
