SILVERSTONE: Yeah, I forgot that the cameras were there. I’d taken my proficiency test so I could get emancipated and work long hours on the set…

FULLER: So you’re an emancipated minor?

SILVERSTONE: Yes, I went to Canada by myself to do the film when I was 15, and I turned 16 on set. I was like, “I can do anything.” But in my heart of hearts, I was lonely. So I trusted everyone, which was a mistake I learned from.

FULLER: Did you have a chaperone?

SILVERSTONE: No, it worked better for my character without one.

FULLER: How much did you plan in terms of projecting the kind of person that Darian was?

SILVERSTONE: I think about her more now than I did then. I wish I could go back and do the movie again, because it isn’t often that a young girl can be really aggressive and take over the whole movie. I wish I’d had more experience at that time. Now I feel I’m more molded. It feels like four or five years have gone by in one. I’m learning, and I’m getting smarter, though in some ways I still think of myself as naïve.

FULLER: Do you ever feel, “Wait! I’m only 17. Let me live a little first”?

SILVERSTONE: All the time, but I’m totally hypocritical about it because I say, “Look, I’m not just 17. I’m an adult. Don’t speak to me that way.” I do get a lot of condescension from people. My parents know I’m an adult because I handle all my own business affairs. But then they say, “Come home at 12 and have your milk and cookies.”

FULLER: How much Alicia was there in Darian in The Crush?

SILVERSTONE: Although she was only 14, she was older than I am. She knew exactly what people were thinking and she used it. I’d run away from it. I envied the power that she had. Although most of the time I imagine everybody thinks I’m retarded, that I look really ugly, I loved being able to walk on the set as Darian and think that everyone there was hot for me. I would never feel that way in life.

FULLER: What about the fact that audiences might respond the same way?

SILVERSTONE: It’s frustrating that people might see me in that way. Soon I’ll get a big movie that will show different things. The bad girls are great for publicity because people really go for that­—which is sad, but true! When I see myself in the “Cryin'” video, and people are going, “Oh, my God,” thinking I’m sexy, it cracks me up because in real life I’m so clumsy. Actually, my character in that video in the essence of what every woman wants to be, in the sense that she takes charge. She knows what she wants, and she’s going to get it somehow. At the same time, there’s something really soft about her, which came out in the next video, “Amazing,” where I got to be cute. I decided that if she’s going to just be a tough girl, you can’t love her. You can only want her physically. But I wanted to make her a real, whole human being.