Zoe Kazan

Currently: Perfecting her Scottish brogue and tapping into her inner child, playing ages 11 to 16 as Sandy, one of Miss Jean Brodie's special set of students in the off-Broadway revival of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring Cynthia Nixon.

Hometown: Venice Beach, California. As the daughter of screenwriters Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord and the granddaughter of prolific film and stage director Elia Kazan, the bright actress describes her childhood as extremely creative, putting on shows with her sister every night for their parents, tackling writing before she could even read and cultivating an appreciation for film noir. "My first ten memories are watching movies. My parents lectured me about structure when I was little," she laughs.

Papu Snafu: "We called him Elia Papu because the Greek word for grandfather is Papu," she says of her most famous kin. "So when I first went to middle school, my drama teacher asked me if I was related to Elia Kazan…and I said, 'No, but that's so funny because my grandpa's name is Elia Papu and it sounds so much like that!'" she recalls. While she attributes her "intellectual appetite" for film to her upbringing, she says that the most impactful thing she learned from her grandfather is the sense of camaraderie in the business: "When I started looking to make a home for myself in the world, this is immediately where I looked–in the theater–because that seems to be the place where he made a family."

Are You My Mother? Her experience with Jean Brodie, which is her first professional stage credit since graduating Yale University in 2005, has been a testament to what the elder Kazan instilled in her. "It was during my first week of rehearsal and I was exhausted and asleep on the couch, and my roommates were watching Sex and the City. Cynthia came on and I heard her voice and I just sat straight up like my mother had just called me," she says, giggling. "When we met, she put me at ease right away and that was the thing that I think I was most surprised by. For better or worse, growing up in the periphery and seeing how artists can be, I was expecting more ego," she says of the Tony-winning actress. "And she has no ego. She carries herself like a great lady, but she doesn't make you feel small. From the first day, she just made me feel like I belonged there."

Shedding Skin: "I think that our whole cast is really extraordinarily bonded," she continues, recalling how early on, she invited the other girls in the cast to her house for dinner and "stupid get-to-know-you games." That bond also helped the young performer with one of the play's most famous scenes, where she appears in the buff for over 10 minutes alongside a fully-clothed character over twice her age. "By the time I started doing it nude, we were in the space and [co-star] Ritchie [Coster] and I were friends and had built up a lot of trust between us," she says. "But we eased into it. I started in my underwear and actually that was much harder than being naked, because you're used to being judged in your underwear! You're used to being in a bikini on the beach and you're like, 'Aw fuck, my thighs,'" she laughs. "But I'll tell you something weird. When I'm home now and taking a shower…I feel like I'm wearing my costume. Because it's something I share with everybody, it's like I can't get down to something more private. It's like I almost want to be able to put on a different skin!"

Politics and Playwrights: As a scholar and playwright, Kazan appreciates Jean Brodie for its vintage feel, but agrees that some of the play's political undertones can't be caught in just one viewing: "There's a lot of stuff about cult of personality and fascism that it's just not something we think about that often today." Still, she asserts that the play is still very relevant in today's political climate. As far as her own views go, she relays them with a quick anecdote: "My dad told me when George W. Bush was elected for the first time: 'If you ever do anything that you get arrested for–anything to protest his regime–I'll take care of you for as long as you want,'" she laughs. Instead of fighting the power, though, she spends her down time writing plays and studying her craft. "When you're a young actor and you're trying to work…you've gotta do something with your creative mind or it goes dull!" she says smartly. "So I take a lot of classes because it keeps me thinking about text and structure and that helps when I get a role like this…If there's anything that I learned growing up in a family of artists, it's just that you want to be working!"