Sometimes, in the summer, I just step out of my home, and I see all these people - Montreal is like El Dorado. It doesn't exist. It's so perfect and beautiful and multicultural and chill and fun.

I don't like shopping that much. I do it for an hour, and then I feel empty inside and weird.

I think, at some point, there's only so much you can draw from within without getting inspired from what's around you and what other people are doing.

Human beings are created with empathy. Art serves that purpose. So why should I be disinterested in a character who's a man, and why should a man shy away from a show that's female-driven?

I guess I try and learn all the time from every experience in life, so my thinking is a hybrid of everything. I'd have to attribute some of that to my work in the fashion industry - in some obscure way.

We can think so much about life and take ourselves so seriously; I mean, I like to tell people, 'Don't take life too seriously' because you'll cloud the experience. That's what the meaning of life is to me - being able to enjoy the moment.

I don't have the best family life. I'm not going to have a sob story and be like, my parents abandoned me, because they didn't. But they also are not that present. When I'm alone, I'm alone. I don't have anybody to call, and so I have to create meaning from myself.

Rooming with six strangers and having my life taped for MTV's groundbreaking reality series, 'The Real World', in the nation's most liberal city was a formative experience for a young, Hispanic, conservative, Catholic girl from the Southwest.