I was born into a middle class family in New Jersey. My dad came home from serving in the Army after having lost his father, worked in the Breyers ice cream plant in Newark, New Jersey. Was the first person to graduate from college.
New Jersey is very big. There are different areas of New Jersey. There is North New Jersey. There is like the center. There are a lot of actors from New Jersey that don't speak with a New Jersey accent.
When I went to college, I wasn't really happy at there, and I really wanted to come home. Mind you, I auditioned for 'The Wiz' the day after I came home from college. I wanted to come home and try to go to a new school.
I have a great T-shirt that I received at the New Jersey Hall of Fame when I was inducted. It says - it makes me choke up - it says, 'I'm a Jersey tomato'... I am. I am a Jersey girl and proud of it.
New Jersey shaped who and what I am. Growing up in Jersey gave you all the advantages of New York, but you were in its shadow. Anyone who's come from here will tell you that same story.
Well if you from New Jersey, you always knew that going to Jersey Shore was way different from where you lived at. I live in Newark, and that is 150 percent opposite of Jersey Shore.
I have always played into the belief that you are only ever borrowing the jersey; you never own the jersey because someone has gone before you and there is going to be someone after you, so it's a case of giving the jersey maximum respect.
I started going back and forth, New York, London, New York, London. I wasn't looking back at all. I was doing tons of jobs. Working, working, working, working.
I definitely want to continue being an actress. I love it. The reason I'm going to college is because I do want knowledge in another field. College isn't the college experience for me. I'm not going to be in a sorority. I'm not going to network. I'm not even really going to make my lifelong friends.
Not going back is fine. Not going back but occasionally visiting might be best. Not going back but remembering so you don’t see the same view twice. Not going back so you can turn a new page, write a new chapter, develop an entire new list. Not going back so you can stretch and grow and see yourself in a light that you never knew existed. Not going back so that you can fly. Fly.
I am definitely going to college!
We have a lot of work to do in New Jersey, but I am darn proud we've brought our state back.
I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
I didn't finish college; my parents didn't graduate college - we didn't have a pot to piss in. I'm from Newark, New Jersey. I had to work. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be an artist without having a job.
After we finished touring 'Ignore The Ignorant' we had this perfect idea that we were going to take a couple of years off, that was the plan. Because we thought we were definitely going to take time off, I was going to go back to college, that was what I was going to do. Because the whole idea of it was that I have spent ten years in this band and not even realised that that amount of time has passed.
I was definitely planning to go to college, but I deferred my admission to Carnegie Mellon to be in a non-equity tour of 'The Sound of Music.' But I made very little money in the tour, and college is really expensive, and I thought I'd never be able to pay off those loans.