I don't think people were betting on me, but they were giving me a chance. I think I rode a wave there, by being different in appearance than the girls who preceded me.
It was always my dream, to do a leading role on Broadway. It's what I went to college to do, in hopes of one day someone taking a chance on me and saying, 'You know what? You're going to be our girl.'
It's not like I'm looking for a blonde or a brunette, light-skinned or dark-skinned. I feel like I give any girl a fighting chance.
Of course, I loved the Spice Girls. I loved Geri and Baby, but who liked Posh Spice? They said I looked like her, and I said: 'That's not cool, that's really mean.'
But it's cool working with female directors because I'm a girl, so you do relate to them more. You can talk to them about other stuff like clothes and all that.
See, at a certain point it becomes cool to be boy crazy. That happens in sixth grade, and it gives you so much social status, particularly in an all-girls school, if you can go up and talk to boys.
I remember girls watching it in high school, and I thought the basketball part of the show was cool. And lo and behold, a few years later, I found myself in 'Tree Hill' land.
Writing is powerful. Whether it's a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change.
I'm beginning to get pigeonholed as the girl who plays the crazies and weirdoes - and that's not the entirety of who I am. Hopefully, the whole point of being in this profession is that you change into anyone you want to be.
As a girl who was raised on the idea that we should give back to our community as much as possible, I believe that we have more power than we think when it comes to making change.
But I don't want to be out there anymore; I don't want people asking me about my health issues, about my kids. I choose not to be a public paparazzi girl on purpose.
Some models are naturally very thin, but if they aren't naturally like that, then what these girls do to their health to fit in... To be a size zero or a two when you're tall is incredible to me.
I'm most comfortable in my bare shorts without any underwear and a T-shirt if I'm home. I definitely like to sleep naked. I don't know how girls do it with thongs. Forget that!
I'm a hometown girl, and my personality at home is the opposite of the performer in me. But then, when I'm home and haven't done anything for a while, I get really itchy and nervous and weird-feeling.
'The Nature of Jade' is about a girl who works with the elephants at the zoo near her home, and who, through her involvement with them, becomes involved with a boy and his baby.
Just being at home, growing up naturally, and being here now with my video and my music, I think people realize that I was in the Spice Girls 8 years ago.
Social topics may hit too close to home for people, but then again, if you pull a heartstring, then that's what country music is. It's not just songs about getting drunk and leaving your girl.
With all the hundreds of dresses and shoes I have, it would be an absolute crime if I don't have a little girl. I have a whole room at home filled with my stage wear.
I'll always be a Georgia girl at heart, but I live in Los Angeles full time. My parents still live in Georgia, so I go home as often as I can.
I don't want to be one of those people who falls out of cabs drunk. But I don't want to be known as some boring girl who just sits at home and doesn't do anything.
I hope that somewhere in Small Town, U.S.A., a 15-year-old kid looks to me as a role model the way I looked at the Indigo Girls and Elton John as role models.
