Daniela Ruah

“There's no better training than working on a soap opera because of the amount of hours, the amount of pages you do a day are unbelievable. It's the best training I had in terms of discipline.”

“I like being pregnant - feeling the baby moving, acknowledging the miracle that we're capable of producing a whole other being from scratch. I feel more like a woman than ever before. There's just an all-around sensation of power.”

“I was one of the lucky people who found what I loved at a really young age. When I was 16, I got my first job in a Portuguese soap opera, and I realized how much I really loved it.”

“No one wants perfection. I want a confident, smart guy, obviously, but what's hot is a guy who doesn't have all the answers. We gals like a guy we can help because, ultimately, we like being needed.”

“No actor has a flawless career, but in the long term, I'd like my name to be synonymous with good quality.”

“I'm starting my own family, and there is no other feeling like it.”

“I think my mom put me in tap classes when I was three, which I never pursued. I don't know how to tap. Then we moved to Portugal when I was five, and, I think, she put me in ballet classes immediately. Then I was expelled for being too restless - I am too high energy - and was told I could go do rhythm gymnastics.”

“I majored in dance in college.”

“I love playing complex characters.”

“You'd rather have a good headshot that cost you a little more but that's going to last than pay less money for a headshot that's not good enough.”

“My main goal, when I started acting, was to show as much versatility as possible because I like playing diverse roles.”

“I started my career in Portugal, and the longest I've ever played a character was for about a year, which is how long our TV shows last.”

“No actor in the world started off at the top.”

“Nature is a beautiful thing - it does what it needs to do when it needs to do it.”

“I'm not from the States, so Thanksgiving, for me, was never a huge tradition.”

“That's the beauty of the acting world. You can play so many different characters who know and do so many things that you have no idea about as yourself. So I'm a big fan of workshops and classes and learning new things because you can always apply it. It's your little supply bag of creativity. Keep filling it up.”

“I would suggest it to any actor to get some movement classes because it really, really makes a difference.”

“With River's birth, nothing went according to plan. My water broke three weeks early, and after 12 hours of labor and Pitocin, I was in incredible pain and still only one-centimeter dilated.”

“There's a very fine line between martial arts and dance. Kicking with your foot stretched out, or kicking with your foot flat in someone's face, in terms of flexibility, it's all kind of the same thing.”

“I was always such a skinny kid, so I kind of grew up with an 'I hate skinny' mentality.”