The strangest part about being famous is you don't get to give first impressions anymore. Everyone already has an impression of you before you meet them.
I've worked with women who I've never wanted to tell anything about myself to, and I've worked with guys who have been pouring wells of emotion. So emotional availability is not a gender-specific thing.
I don't talk to anybody about my personal life, and maybe that perpetuates it, too. But it's really important to own what you want to own and keep it to yourself.
You know, with the film industry crews, there's an odd mix between a very technical and a very artistic approach to the work, and sometimes as a woman you have to be a little bit careful about how things come out because people don't really want to listen if it's in a certain emotional tone or too strong.
I've been working as an actress since I was very young, and I know a lot of people who are actors who don't have to deal with having a persona... You know, if you look up the word persona, it isn't even real. The whole meaning of the word is that it's made up, and it's like I didn't even get to make up my own. It can be annoying.
I also have that desire to blurt stuff out, but I've learned I can't do that. Not when you realise the whole world is listening. That's why perhaps I look so uncomfortable in interviews at times.
I had to act in a school play when I was about ten years old. I really didn't want to do it. But everyone had to do it so I didn't have a choice. A talent agent came and watched it and later gave me some work. It's funny because I'd always known that I wanted a movie career. I just didn't think that I would be in the movies.
Even while starting out I took things very seriously; I wasn't the sort of kid that would do a doll commercial or do a series for Nickelodeon. They asked me to do silly things, and I wasn't a silly kid.
You don't always just have to do an indie movie to feel like you're controlling it with a few people that you really have connected with, creatively. You can do it on a bigger scale.
I do want to work on writing, because writing's a skill. Writing is something that you can train yourself to know better. To know yourself better. And it's intimidating as hell.
Despite what people think, I was such a rule follower at school. I loved the whole slacker look, like, 'Hey, I don't care, whatever,' but if I didn't turn my homework in, I would panic.
The sad thing is that I feel so boring because 'Twilight' is literally how every conversation I have these days begins - whether it's someone I'm meeting for the first time or someone I just haven't seen in a while. The first thing I want to say to them is, 'It's insane! And, as a person, I can't do anything!'
