Krysten Ritter

I’m having a great time. I get to travel and see the world. And yeah, I’ll have a family, because I don’t want to miss out on that amazing experience, but it’s not defining who I am.

I didn’t know how to throw a punch – why would I? Who knows how to throw a punch? Now I do it all the time, and it makes me feel strong.

On the farm, I had chores. I had a calf. We had a herd of cattle in the pasture. We’d go and get me a calf at a cow auction with Amish people, which I would raise. I gave it a bottle every day, in this cute little coop, like a giant dog coop almost. I’ve always been a big animal person.

I was always loud and obnoxious and giggly and funny.

I like to audition for good projects because if it’s a good project, it’s an opportunity to get in front of a casting director.

I’m a weirdo. I don’t leave the house unless I have to.

Well, once we finish something, I can’t really listen to it because all I hear are problems.

I was the original pop star, knocking off as many birds as you could get in one night. Pete’s got a bit of a chip, because I used to get all the girls.

A song is a song, you know? First of all comes a song, second of all comes the way it’s promoted … where you place it and what happens to it and how it gets streamed and all that sort of thing is in the lap of the gods, and maybe artists in the end just take a back seat and let it roll.

The only way I could get comfortable around people was to make them laugh. I was an obedient girl, and humor was my one form of rebellion. I used comedy to deflect. Like, ‘Hey, check out my zit!’ – you know, making fun of yourself before someone else has a chance to.

I laugh about it now. It was ridiculous, and it was calculatedly decadent. It was pretty horrendous, really. I remember feeling a bit ill at times. You know, in those days, the thing was to live it. And we lived it and loved it, and it was great. But that is another era.

It takes a lot of time, commitment and a choice. I’ve chosen this path, but it’s not to say I’m not open to love or whatever comes my way. You never close doors.

I look like an angel, but I can play the bitch.

The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that’s not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it’s a power – not being yourself, and being in the role; it’s just like another prop.

I quite liked Sharkey and George and then there was a cartoon with rapper MC Hammer in it – Hammertime – I loved that cartoon, it was genius! They don’t make cartoons like that anymore.

There are so many different definitions of ‘pretty.’ it’s so much broader than before. The old pretty is boring- nobody cares anymore.

Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying ‘I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award.’ The other is ‘You want fries with that?’

If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you’re asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.

I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn’t want to go on!

If a few companies were less greedy, the people at the bottom woud have a lot more.

I don’t see what the point is in growing up.