I thought it was great being the only girl in the room. I loved the attention. After I got used to it, I didn't want to be the only girl in the room. I had no one to talk to.
I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there.
I just feel like growing up in Los Angeles, you learn, 'Well you're never gonna be the prettiest girl in the room, so just don't even try.' I mean, I care about being pretty, but it's not my most valued thing.
I didn't have the easiest childhood. I was never the popular girl in school growing up. I was always the lone black girl or the lone fat girl or the long tall girl, so that has made me more compassionate to all people. It also gave me the drive and ambition to go after my dreams in a big way.
I think guys, because we share a history growing up of being stereotyped, because there are fewer of us in the dance world, that contributes early on to a bond among us. A lot of us share stories of being harassed or teased growing up - there's a certain deep camaraderie that's formed through that shared struggle.
When I was growing up, no one ever said to me, "You cannot do math because you're a girl." But, there was an understanding growing up that math and science were for boys. Somebody lied to me because Katherine Johnson woman exists, all of these women existed.
Guys never looked at me. I always had crushes on older seniors who never looked at me. So, when I tell directors that I wanna play that girl who gets rejected, they're like, 'Why?' I tell them it's because I relate to that girl much more than being the girl who makes jaws drop when she walks into a room.
I'm a decent-looking guy, but I've never walked into a room and got a girl because of how I looked. Look, I'm never excluded because of my looks. I just don't stand out.
I was a shy little girl. Growing up, I was often content being alone in my room, making up stories, and acting out all the parts. I became so good at it that, with the door closed, my parents thought I had friends over.
My brother was an avid Stoke City fan and a good footballer. We shared a room, growing up, and the walls were covered with 1970s Stoke players, like Peter Shilton, Gordon Banks, and Jimmy Greenhoff.
I was really heavy growing up, so it was never feeling like the pretty girl, never being popular.
If you want a measure of how private a place the dressing room was when I was growing up at Manchester United, consider this: even Sir Alex Ferguson would knock before coming into the dressing room at the Cliff, the old training ground. The dressing room is for the players - and the players only.
Growing up, I never felt like the pretty girl.
I'm Asian-American, and I was the only Chinese girl growing up in a white school in San Diego. So I understood what it was like to be different, to always want to fit in and never feel like you ever could.
I would point out that I'm an actress for a reason! If I were popular in high school, I would have considered another career because I wouldn't have been alone in my room, making up other characters for myself. I definitely had growing pains. The popular kids didn't want anything to do with the girl who was starting the drama club.
I wasn't taken seriously being the only girl playing in band growing up.