Gaby Hoffmann

I think that anybody coming out and saying, 'This is who I am, and let me show it to you...' is good for the world.

We all got driven out of Manhattan. It was a very conducive place for artists when I was growing up, and now it's definitely not. The city has been completely taken over by the rich.

I was given an incredible gift growing up in the Chelsea, a space where it is completely fine to be yourself - you just had to figure out what that was. You didn't have to figure that out in the face of opposition at every turn.

The sleeplessness is proven; it eradicates your memory.

It was like I lived in a little suburban neighborhood in the middle of New York City because I could run around barefoot or, you know, completely independently from a very young age in the safety of this building where I knew everybody and where I had friends on every floor, and I knew the bellmen in the lobby.

I never set out to be an actor. Again, my mother presented this job by job to me at the time, and if it sounded fun, I would say yes and if it didn't, I would say no. I always knew, since I was 7 or 8 years old, that it was a means to an end and that I wanted to go to college.

Suburbia, to me, was the most fantastical, unusual place. I thought it was Disneyland.

When people are struggling, that's a painful place to be in, to not know who you are and where you belong and what you desire.

I was never as famous as all these kids. There was no social media. We weren't celebrity-obsessed as a culture. I feel like these kids are under a crazy microscope; they're basically brands. And they eventually implode and act out. They need a break, and they're not getting one.

Every once in a while, I would say, 'I don't want to do this anymore,' and I would go back to third grade, and after six months, I'd say, 'OK, I'm bored. Let's go make a movie.'

I am paid to dive deeper into my own humanity and do that with other people in collaboration... so that, in and of itself, I just feel like is the greatest privilege in the world.

I was raised in a way where there was no distinction between kids and adults.