DANIELA RUAH

When you go to an audition, don't hang on to it because no matter how well you feel it went or how badly, you just never know what the outcome is going to be.

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

I've met real female NCIS agents who were smaller than I am. They were very petite.

There's this accent that I think everybody has when they grow up going to an international school. It's a mix of not quite English, not quite American. When I moved to L.A., it just went completely American.

I do have a huge fascination for science, and I love to hear what my dad has to say. He used to take me into minor surgeries when I was a kid and let me watch, so I definitely have a passion for it, but it's not as big a passion as I have for acting and creating characters.

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.

It's a birthmark called nevus of Ota. It covers the whole white of my eye and darkens it. The square of the eye, the white part, is completely dark on my right eye, not just the iris.

I was born here in the States. I moved to Portugal when I was five. And then my parents put me in an English school.

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

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.

No actor in the world started off at the top.

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.

Having a gun in your hand is very empowering.

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

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 know a lot of procedurals have huge viewership, yet they're never nominated for awards.

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

A Portuguese is not going to punch you for no reason.

I do go online a lot.

As I understand from the real military personnel who I've had the opportunity to speak to over the last few years, humor is very much used to diffuse stress. I think that if they were to keep it as serious as the situations often are, there would be a lot more nervous breakdowns.

I'm always competitive, but if I didn't win fair and square, I didn't win. And I want to win if I'm genuinely better than my competitor.

The goal is to work as much as possible in projects I respect and that will help me grow.

I majored in dance in college.

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.

I love playing complex characters.