On newsstands this week, the actress who guest edits harper by Harper’s Bazaar’s September issue, talks The Vampire Diaries, living adventurously and politics.
Here’s some:
On her shocking departure from the hit CW series The Vampire Diaries in 2015:
“That was the plan from the get-go. If anything, the fact that [leaving] terrified me drove me even more. I needed to feel that fear of “Oh, my Gold, what if I never get a job again?” That just made me want to work five times as hard to make sure that didn’t happen.”
On her roles since then:
“The things I want to do aren’t necessarily the things that are expected of me. I don’t want to play a teenager anymore. I want to play adult roles and be challenged and work with great filmmakers and tell incredible stories, and that has meant being really picky.”
On living an adventurous life:
“My rule of thumb is, I’ll try anything once. I have a healthy–or possibly unhealthy–obsession with trying things for the first time. Nobody imagines me to be by myself backpacking, so they just think, “It can’t be her.”
On how her modest background helped shape her political views:
“I come from an immigrant family, and I think it’s unacceptable to treat anyone like that,” of Donald Trump’s “build the wall” rhetoric. “Hopefully he’ll get impeached. Or indicted. Or both. He just doesn’t act like a president. He acts like a reality star on a terrible, horrible show that should never be aired. And he’s responsible for incredibly important decisions for the country that I live in, so my opinion does matter whether or not I had a chance to vote.”