My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.

[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point.

What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.

That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.

As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.

I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting.