What a world we live in. I want to be incredibly close to the heart of it all. To live honestly, truthfully and to be completely present is the ultimate enterprise.
Dianna Agron
If I'm traveling, I'll take a film camera and a digital camera because sometimes there are moments where, if you've lost it, or if coming back and it accidentally goes through the X-ray machine and it gets overexposed, you might have had a really important moment to you and you would be really upset that you didn't have a back-up.
I think that people vibe off your energy and I'm a pretty mellow person.
Painting, drawing - I'm really into photography, I've done it since high school.
Sometimes I feel people can move past what they've grown up around and their surroundings while in a place and some people need closure after they've left and then coming back. I've seen it happen with people I knew growing up that hated each other, and then years later you go home and you see them walking down the street and they have babies.
My goal has always been not to look forward to the next thing, but to relish and celebrate the successes I have at the moment. Whether it's landing a part in a student film or having a good day in acting class, I never discredit anything.
Well I've also kind of noticed that, whatever energy that you put out, is kind of the energy that you receive. And so people are just really lovely and kind and soft spoken with me.
Sometimes there are paparazzi that take photos and you don't know they're there. So you're laughing, kicking up your heels and doing silly things. You don't even realize it. And then there's other times where they're two feet away from your face and it's invasive and it feels threatening, so you don't want to be smiling.
I didn't take the typical path and go to college after high school. Instead, I saved up money from teaching dance classes and moved to L.A. But my family was so supportive - I never felt pressure from them. It's crucial to find a support system, even if it's not your family.
It's really sad looking at people like Lindsay Lohan. She's an amazing actress, but you see what happens when people know too much about your personal life. They start not being able to look at you the same way professionally. I don't want that to happen to me.
I feel as if I go to Africa, I may never come back. I'm just going to live with the animals and adopt an elephant, and it's going to be my friend.
My father was a general manager with Hyatt, so we lived in the hotel so he would be close by if there were any problems. My mum was always adamant about us not abusing it. So I still had to clean my room. Housekeeping would never come and do it.
I was on the yearbook staff, so I would take out film cameras and Nikons and take photos around school and at sporting events and things like that. We had a darkroom as well. I just loved it. I also saved up for a video camera to video my friends and cut and paste the videos together and I gave them to all of my friends for graduation.
With every job I've gotten, I've bought myself something. When 'Glee' was picked up, I rented a piano for the year. For smaller victories, I'll go to dinner with a friend, or go for a walk and think about it all. It's important to say to yourself, Today was a good day.
I think that as an artist, the more that you can do to diversify, and kind of challenge yourself, the more you grow.
I am not a sports girl.
What I fell in love with as a child was 'My Fair Lady,' 'Funny Face,' 'American in Paris,' and 'Singin' in the Rain.' Just perfect movies to me and I was dancing. I started ballet when I was three. And I fell in love with those movies and fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron.
I've been lucky to travel through quite a bit of Europe and Australia, but I would love to do Asia and South America and South Africa.
Every day is an opportunity to fall or hurt yourself.
There are two types of paparazzi. The ones who hide who get you with your mouth hanging wide open or jumping up and down like an idiot on the street. I much prefer them to the ones who come out and follow you.
Keep going on hikes, keep having your friends in your life, keep that downtime sacred as well because as hard as you work in any job, it's really nice to have the relaxing de-stressors. Stress is the worst thing. That's the ultimate demise of any good thing.
Once a month, try something you don't think you'd be good at. You can find such happy surprises.
I think it's important to keep your personal life to yourself as much as you can. It protects your sanity and you need to have boundaries. And it helps that enchantment of watching an actor. If you know someone's favourite colour or what they like to do on a Sunday, you won't fall for the character as much.
Having a dance background, I became used to rejection at an early age. Dance is very competitive, especially for a sensitive person like me. But I realized it's better not to take it so seriously. If you beat yourself up, it's hard to keep going.
I definitely wasn't cool in high school. I really wasn't. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.
In high school, I taught dance classes for 3-year-olds up to 16-year-olds, so between that and some bat mitzvah money, I saved up a pretty good nest egg to move to L.A.
I sold my first screenplay six months before 'Glee,' but they had the option for a year and now it's back with me.
I think if I hadn't had the dance background, it would have been much harder as a kid to be like, 'I'm going to be an actress.' But you're involved with one area of the arts and other things interest you. It feels like an easier move.
What's great is that starting a blog can get you lot of attention for your writing. But it doesn't have to be for anybody other than yourself.
Going from sharing a one-bedroom place to living in a loft to two people living in a house to me having my own place by myself has kind of mirrored my career... small steps to bigger, to bigger, to now having a steady job.
I have equal parts film and digital cameras in my collection. I think that there are ways to Photoshop photos so that they look like you shot them on film, but is that as rewarding? It just depends on the person.
There was this project I really wanted before 'Glee' and I didn't get cast - I went in about 13 times and I was so bummed when I didn't get it. But then a month later I got cast on 'Glee,' and I felt like it was meant to happen.
Growing up I wanted to be a mixture of Audrey Hepburn and Lucille Ball. Apparently I told my mum when I was eight that I wanted to be an actor.
I used to wear more makeup, but I've learned to enjoy being natural.
