Mae Whitman
Mae Whitman
Mae Margaret Whitman is an American actress and singer. After making her feature film debut as Meg Ryan's younger daughter in 1994's When a Man Loves a Woman and George Clooney's daughter in One Fine Day, released the same year, she was cast as the President's daughter in Independence Day. She would later become known for her television roles as Ann Veal on Arrested Development and Amber Holt on Parenthood. Whitman is also known for co-starring in the films Scott...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth9 June 1988
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
For me, one thing I love is having an arc for a character.
Being a teenager is hard.
In every single 'Tinker Bell' movie, I feel like there's a message that I'm proud to communicate with kids.
Every time I go to Comic-Con, I'm jacked. I want to dress up and walk the floor and answer questions, because I'm excited about it. It's like making new friends.
I don't have one role that I'm particularly fond of doing, and I don't really look for it to differ all the time, but I will try anything and do anything. If it's a role I connect with, I'll go for it, no matter what's involved.
There have been a lot of events that have made me really look at the real world, like September 11th. There are so many things that just make you realize that you're not going to live forever and that you have to enjoy every day.
The actual, original 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' I have vague memories of because I was pretty small, but I loved, loved, loved it. I have only those weird, visceral little-kid memories: I remember the extreme flat, two dimensional green that was their skin or the weird pizza with no sauce - it was just like yellow, drippy cheese.
My mom had an audition for a commercial when I was about two and a half, and I ran in crying and interrupted her. They thought I was cute so they offered me a commercial role. My mom was skeptical and a bit nervous about the child actor thing, but I was extremely bossy and convinced them I wanted to try it.
My favorite book in life is 'A Wrinkle In Time,' which I read before high school. It was my first introduction into the meeting of science and spirit and the universe and big thoughts and all of those interesting New Age-y concepts. It made everything make sense to me and opened up my mind.
It's funny, because I don't have a very addictive personality in any way except for things like stories or books or movies or TV. I just get, like, completely enamored and lost in that world, especially when one really hits the right way. Like, I just can't do anything else.
I like to be a lot of different things at once and dress different ways and I change my hair all the time, so being an actor lets me live out the fantasy of living out 100,000 different lifetimes in one, without all of the repercussions.
I had a friend where it turned out that she hated my guts, all through our friendship. I thought she was my best friend, and then, in high school, she turned on me and had sordid affairs with all of the people that I'd dated. It was less hurtful because I was in high school, so it was more like, 'What's wrong with you? Gross!
I feel like I am a lot of who I am because I watched these shows that said it was okay to be a total weirdo. Shows like 'Pete and Pete,' 'Hey, Dude,' 'Salute Your Shorts' - that's what I grew up with.
I don't really have an aversion to watching myself. I think I've been doing it for long enough that I have a system of separating it in my brain from my egotistical neuroses for the most part.