In my heart of hearts, I'm a character actress, whereas other people play their one strength.

I was meant to make music in my soul way younger than I did. I was just scared because I knew it would take more of me than anything else. But I was all into facing my fears.

As I evolve, my interests change, always. But, what is consistent is that I always look for something new to play.

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.

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.

Some of my greatest memories are of sleep-away camp; I did that three summers in a row when I was, like, 9,10, and 11.

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.

Success is a nice by-product but what I really want is work.

I knew I could live no other way, that the one thing I wanted was to act and do it well.

As early as when I was five or six I wanted to perform.

All that schooling never prepares you for the reality of life.

Because I'm not perfect looking, I get to play better roles.

I don't make an effort to be sloppy. I just don't consider a perfect hairdo and a perfect face to be beautiful. If I had my way I'd dress myself and do my own makeup for magazine shoots.

Fame can be just so annoying because people are so critical of you. You can't just say, 'hi'. You say hi and people whisper' man did you see the way she said hi? What an attitude.

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.

I've been around for a long time now, and you start to hear these urban legends about yourself.

Of course I grew up with the 'Vacation' movie with the legendary Anthony Michael Hall.

I have a huge fear of crowds. The irony is that my band is a therapeutic exercise. I hurl myself into thousands of people.

I don't care about labels or anything.

I just care about what I get to unearth and what makes me uncomfortable and what makes me grow because, ultimately, I just don't want to ever play it safe.

I'm expressive and animated.

In movies like 'Cape Fear,' I never played verbal characters. Now, as a grown-up, I relish playing people that are not like myself. That's what I enjoy about acting.

I have people come up to me who love 'The Other Sister,' or 'Old School,' or 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape.'

I was scared by social media - just scared of what I might attract. Once I broke onto that thing, because I needed it for my band to tell people about shows, I realized, 99 percent of the time, people are funny, clever, inventive, beautiful.

Musically, I wear many hats. I'm the social media director. I conceptualise the videos, write the songs, do the press. I'm not a major label act.

Leaving your home can be a fear at times. You gotta make yourself get out.

My brother has endless footage of us as kids because he had a video camera when we were growing up. The trippiest part was my younger self predicting my future path, like a truth-seer.

I wrote songs when I was little, and I wrote a journal, but I don't think I knew how to let that truth come out yet.

In acting, you have a writer, a director, a character - you're working through being another person - and the irony I always tell people is when I acted early on as a teenager, it actually kept me out of trouble.

It's always been my dream to have a monster rhythm section that's just all groove and pocket.

For me, the most challenging thing was developing myself as a songwriter and as a performer and as the leader of a band. And I just did it.

I hate dates. It becomes a weird auditioning process. And I've never had normal dating.

When you become famous at 19, it does a number in your head, so you find romance in the mundane - isn't it so great that a guy would pick me up at my house and take me to a restaurant?

What do I think being wild is? Nothing. Actually, the whole world is wild. Everything is wild. There we go.

Why I talk so seriously about art is that art is the only thing that helps people stay alive, and it is the only thing that has allowed people to create joy in this insane, suppressive universe. And art is the only thing that they can't get rid of. They've tried, but ultimately they can't stamp it out.

It's only artists who can help artists.

I've never really cared if I was famous for my music. It was just something I had to do.

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.

I've always been an outsider. I've always been attracted to roles that would challenge me and that wouldn't come around very often.

I sort of got lucky in that I was able to carve a niche for myself.

I haven't made a career off my looks, thank God, but hopefully how I've moved people emotionally, the directors I've been able to work with, and the stories I've been a part of.

If you could place blame on entertainment for all the crimes people commit, you'd be in court all the livelong day.

I walk into a restaurant, and people stare as though I've just landed from another planet. Every time I walk out in public, it's like the alien freak show has arrived. It does have its advantages. I hardly ever get bothered by the paparazzi, probably because of some of the more edgy characters I've played in movies.

I've always been the opposite of mainstream. I march to my own beat. It's the only way I know.

So many actors and musicians seem to be only interested in what's expected of them, and they join the dots accordingly. I don't fit into any narrow categories as an actor or a singer.

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.

I was singing before I acted, but I was also attracted to drama, and, y'know, I got successful at that, which isn't a bad thing.

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.

Over time, I've loved jazz, Miles Davis and Chet Baker, then Janis and Jimi and Creedence, then classic rock.