She’s beautiful. She’s athletic. She’s worked gunshot wounds as a surgical nurse. She can act (she currently stars in NBC’s Parenthood). And you’ve already fallen in love with her, back when she was a cheerleader (Friday Night Lights). Esquire Magazine names the actress 2010′s Sexiest Woman Alive. Below are some excerpts from the interview:
Growing Up
“Done with the twenties. I’m confident — confident in my skin, and I’m cool with my flaws and all that stuff. It just feels nice to be at peace with yourself. I think my thirtieth birthday gave me permission to have all that. The twenties were a pain in the ass — figuring it all out. What am I doing? Where do I go?”
On the Particulars of Being the Sexiest Woman Alive
“I’ve never done a sexy photo shoot before. I’ve never really honestly tapped into that side. It was really liberating. It was exciting. I would look at the pictures, like, that’s me?”
On Her Image
“Hopefully people will see that I’m not just a 17-year-old cheerleader from Friday Night Lights.”
On Her Mother
“She — for most of my life, she was a dancer. An exotic dancer. She was a stripper. Um, so she would come home at like three, four o’clock in the morning, and sometimes she would have a really great night, and so she would wake me up in the middle of the night and we’d go to Ralphs and go grocery shopping. And that was so much fun. We’d have the whole grocery store to ourselves, and we would have a blast and buy a hundred dollars in groceries. And it was just the best day ever. The best day.”
On Her Father
“That’s what my dad is for me. ‘Dad, am I gettin’ a little out of order?’ ‘Yes, Mink, you’re out of order.’ He never judges me for any mistake I make, he just tells me when I’m making it. And I trust him. I thank him on a daily basis. I know how lucky I am. I see too many people that don’t have that and my heart breaks for them.”
On Her Boyfriend Derek Jeter, and Saying Thank You
“My boyfriend noticed that about me, too. He’s the same way, and he said it was a good way to judge someone’s character. It’s actually unfortunate, in a way, that you would notice that. It blows my mind that anyone could be unkind to anyone. The guy clearing our plates is a person. I don’t care if you’re sweeping the floor. I don’t care if you’re cleaning my toilet. Not that I have someone to clean my toilet — I clean my own toilet.”
On What Her Thirties Will Bring
“I don’t know. And I’m glad I don’t know.”
On Dancing
“When I was little, when I was alone I would listen to music and make up dance routines. I’d have a whole performance in my room, by myself, to music. Fully choreographed. I entertained myself that way. Copying music videos, memorizing songs. Salt-N-Pepa — all their songs I know verbatim. Still. And En Vogue. I would have a tape player and I would pause it, write the words down, play, listen to a few words, pause it, write it down. Until I had the whole song written down. And then I would listen to it and look at what I wrote until I had it memorized. Obsessive little girl. I used to record the radio and make my own mix tapes. You put the tape player on record and then hit pause, and then when you hear a song you like, you let go of the pause button. Remember that?”
On Going Out
“I love, love live music. I love the Hollywood Bowl, I love tiny little clubs — I just love live music. Friday Night Lights was filmed entirely in Austin, and there were some bands that I discovered in Austin at live shows, and then I got their CDs and they weren’t as good. And I’d tell my friends, ‘But you gotta see them live!’”
On Her Voice
“Can I sing? No. I mean, if the song is loud enough in the car, I sound just like whoever it is, of course. In the first season of Friday Night Lights my voice was very high-pitched. I came out talking like a little girl. And I watched it and thought, Oh, dear. I worked on it, all by myself. I went to a couple of vocal coaches, but really I just was mindful of it, and I would listen, and speak from my diaphragm as opposed to my throat. Because it would drive me crazy.”
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