I've had friends of mine say, like, they're tired of 'gayface,' and I was like, 'What's gayface?' They were like, 'It's the gay version of blackface: like, come in and be more effeminate.'

I have an amazing social media manager, Allison Peters, who is one of my closest friends since childhood.

I wouldn't just come home from school and watch TV everyday, they had me involved in lots of local theatre. I was a very dramatic, talkative child. And that was part of my mother's creative solution - to put me in workshops and classes and children's theatre programmes.

I didn't grow up thinking I was pretty; there was always a prettier girl than me. So I learned to be smart and tried to be funny and develop the inside of me, because I felt like that's what I had.

I come from a family with a really strong work ethic - not just my parents, but my aunts, uncles and cousins. It rubbed off on me. I have a cousin in The Bronx who says I'm like the longshoreman of actors. I am a worker.

I've never been comfortable being a pawn. I work with brands where I feel like I can have my say and companies that I'm proud to be in a relationship with. Partnerships take a lot of time. If I am going to put my name and my face and my energy behind something, I want it to be authentic.