If you've been seeing visions of the same 5'10" blond girl on music-hall stages and movie, TV, and computer screens, you're not hallucinating. The ubiquitous thespian and siren is 25-year-old Nora Kirkpatrick, who plays uptight nerd Katherine on the ABC Family sitcom Greek, was the spacey Courtney on the massively popular web mockumentary "Dorm Life," has scored roles in indie and blockbuster films alike, and jams on the accordion in the supernova-hot band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. We caught up with Nora to discuss Michael Bay's directorial choices, the hazards of touring with a football-team-sized band, and why she'd rather be Martin Short than Meryl Streep.

In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, you play the role of "Beautiful Girl," a role I was originally up for. Since you prevented me from being on set, can you share any gossip about Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf, or Megan Fox?

The scene I was in was just with Shia LaBeouf. It was a really small role, so in the audition they had me improv how I would hit on Shia LaBeouf in a classroom setting. When I got to set, I still didn't have a script, because it was very confidential. I showed up and asked, "So, what exactly do you want me to say?" And Michael Bay said, "Oh, yeah, whatever, you were funny in the audition, you do that." Then the smoke machines start going and the cranes start rolling and there are 300 extras, and I'm like, "So... this is the moment in which I say anything I want in a big-budget Michael Bay movie?" Needless to say, that scene got cut.

Your ten-to-sixteen-person psychedelic folk-rock band, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, espouses a communal, neo-hippie sensibility. Do you guys just sit around all day, smoking hookahs, dabbling in the sitar, and being one with everything?

Yes, excuse me while I shoo this goat out of my kitchen. No, but seriously, I wouldn't say we're out of touch with reality. Our music is optimistic, which is rare in rock today. We're all focused on living our lives with a lot of love and adventure, but that can easily get skewed into painting us as forest-dwelling nymphs, when, in reality, we're all functioning members of society.

With huge super-groups like this, does that make the logistics of touring difficult—sharing beds, doing buddy counts when you get on the bus, that sort of thing?