And what was the first thing she remembers seeing of America?
"A black man," she says in the new issue of W magazine. "It was at the American embassy, and all I had known were Caucasian people with blond hair, brunette hair, and sometimes red hair. You're never really taught about anything else. I think I was frightened. And the beautiful thing was, the man spoke Russian. He explained to me that there are people in this world who are of different color. Being seven and a half, I asked him, 'Does that mean there are purple people in this world?'"
"It's not that I was raised to think I was unattractive, but it was just never something that was pointed out to me by my family. They would point out personality traits—'Our daughter is really quirky'—versus what I look like, because inevitably, looks go, so it makes no difference."
And she always thought college was her career goal.
"I didn't really think of acting as a career. I'm the first person in my family to not be a college graduate. I always associate careers with college diplomas. When I was 22, my contract with That '70s Show ended, and I had to make a conscious decision about what I wanted to do with my life.
"During the show, I had attempted to go to college, but I realized that the traffic in L.A. made it too difficult for me to go to school at 6 a.m. and be back at work at 10 a.m. I asked my parents if it was okay if I dropped out. They said okay, you can defer until after your contract with That '70s Show ends. And then it ended.
"I realized for the first time that I couldn't imagine doing anything else. So I had to make acting a career— to make smart choices instead of choices made for fun."
