Liz Gillies may be just as cool as the title of her FX show – Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll – sounds. The actress prefers hiking to gyms and a jazz slash cheese plate ten-person dinner party to a full-on mixer. She’s a girl after our own potato head hearts, and her most recent project – The fifth installment of National Lampoon’s Vacation – just came out this weekend.

(P.S. She also told us she didn’t see the movies until she booked the role…but you didn’t hear it from us…)

From start to finish, what would be your ideal food day?

I’m going to answer this as if I don’t have a long list of food allergies that constrict my diet. This will be my fantasy list. My ideal food day would start with a tall stack of pancakes, scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. For my carb-tastic lunch, I’d start with bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then a Margherita pizza followed by a fantastic dessert. For dinner, I’d have pasta primavera with grilled chicken and finish with apple pie. If I didn’t finish the pie, I would probably wait an hour then revisit it five or six more times until it was all gone. I can’t leave a dessert unfinished.

What does it feel like to play the lead singer of a band in your new show Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll? What do you love about the show?

It’s fantastic. I love everything about the show. I love the cast, I love that I get to sing and I love that it’s funny as hell. I’ve never been in a band so this is beyond fun for me. Plus, I get to wear awesome rock star clothes and act like a badass all day. What could be better?

What’s always on your playlist right now?

A lot of jazz, rock and Woodstock. It’s always a pretty good mix of the three, plus some soul. No playlist is complete without a little Otis Redding.

What workouts can’t you live without?

I like hiking. There’s something about being outside in the air that feels healthier than a gym and distracts me from the fact that I’m working out. Gyms aren’t my thing. Nothing I hate more than public places with overhead lighting.

Do you eat healthy? What are some of your vices?

I’m extremely passionate about food but I have a lot of food allergies, so I can’t eat a lot of what makes food taste so good. The biggest thing I miss is dairy. I haven’t had dairy or red meat in about seven years. I also try to stick to a gluten-free diet but that’s especially hard considering I grew up in an Italian family where bread is a huge staple of every meal. Overall, I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and maintain a healthy diet. But if I had it my way, I’d be sitting in a room eating French fries and cake all day.

What beauty products are always in your bathroom?

Neutrogena Make-up Remover Wipes, Dr. Dennis Gross One Step Acne Eliminating Pads, Eve Lom Rescue Mask and Tata Harper Regenerating Cleanser to name a few. I love a good product.

Were you a National Lampoon fan as a kid? What was the funniest thing that happened on the set of Vacation?

Embarrassing confession: I hadn’t seen it until I booked the movie. I know. I’m the worst. I love it now, of course. We filmed a big sorority scene so it was a lot of extras in bikinis holding red solo cups and making out. It was a lot. I might play a sorority girl in this movie but there is no way I could survive that world. I’m a forty-year-old mom at heart. I’d rather have a small cocktail party with ten close friends, jazz and a cheese plate.

Something we don’t know about your cast members in that movie…

As dysfunctional as they may seem in the movie, they got along famously when I hung out with them. They had really great family chemistry.

Advice to your younger self…

Don’t stress about your flat chest. It’ll all be okay. Also, don’t touch your eyebrows.

When you have friends over, what’s your go-to recipe? Or go-to takeout order?

I’d say it’s 50/50. Takeout is definitely easier but I love to cook, so I’m always down. Dessert is my thing so I always make sure there’s a great assortment of baked goods.

Three Instagram accounts you can’t live without right now…

@Mensweardog, @BasementFox and @SomethingNavy

If you could host a dinner party with any five people, living or dead, who would be there? Who would you have perform for your guests?

Laughter is most important to me, so I’d want to pick people I could have a good time with. The guest list would read: Will Ferrell, Larry David, Adam Sandler, Kristin Wiig and Jim Carey. With performances by: Aerosmith, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Frank Sinatra. I’d say I know how to throw a party.

*Liz Gillies, photographed in New York, NY by Danielle Kosann. Liz wears an A.L.C. dress.

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