You went to UCLA. Was it important for you to get a college education? When I was a kid I took honors classes but it wasn't because I was smarter than anyone else, it was cause I busted my ass. I had to work twice as hard as the gifted kids, but because I did, it seemed like a natural progression to go to college. Plus [going to UCLA] meant I was in LA, where I needed to be to get an acting career going.

Are your parents or sisters into acting? My mom is a schoolteacher and my father works in sales. We all grew up as very art-based kids though. One sister was a photographer and one sister was an artist and I was the little actor kid.

Can you tell us about the rumors that you wanted an Oscar at age eight? I just remember when I was little, sitting down with my family once a year and watching these people up on stage to collect their awards. I was like, "I want to be onstage, I want to entertain and make people laugh and cry." I said, "Hey I want to win one of those." As I got older I took it more seriously. But the actual Oscar is not as important to me — I can't measure my success on a goal that I had when I was eight years old! If it happens that'll be great, I'll feel very honored that I entertained enough to make people give me a little golden statue. But at the same time it's not something that I need for my happiness.

Back then were you doing backyard performances for your family? Yeah, me and my sisters, we would goof around and put on shows. The first time I did a play I was 12 years old and my mom saw an ad in the paper for a play that the local high school was doing. It was The Winter's Tale, and they needed a kid to play a five year old. I was 12, but I probably looked like I was eight. I went in and got the part. That was my first real taste of being directed and having to know lines. It was Shakespeare, so I had no idea what I was saying. In high school I picked up the play to read again and I was like oh, that's what he meant.

Are there any embarrassing home videos of you floating around? Oh yeah, are you kidding me? Where I'm just singing my heart out — only I can't sing. I'm sure a bunch of kids that I went to elementary school with would be able to pull out some pretty great things. But you know what? Kids are supposed to be dumb like that. I had a good time growing up.

Are there any embarrassing roles that you kind of look back at and say why did I do that? I don't really look back and think why did I do that. Every job built my career in some way or made me grow as a person or I got to meet someone great. I had one line on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but I met Will Smith and he took 20 minutes out of his day to talk to the kid with one line. To this day, I think that guy is amazing because of that.

Have you ever gone through a love triangle like the one Rory and Jess are in on Gilmore Girls? I never have. But those relationships where you're at each other's throat, yet you really care about somebody — I think we've all been there. I went to a high school football game recently and realized high school kids are so funny. They're in their world and they're at the top of their s**t. It's a interesting time in your life because you're trying to act older and mature but you really have no idea what you're doing. You're scared and it's okay to be scared. It's okay to not know completely what you want or what you should be doing and to stumble a little bit.

Do people just come up and start talking to you, now that you're on a TV show? Yeah. You don't know them but they know you so they'll come over to you. I always think it's flattering when someone will say something about the show. If someone's coming up to say they hate me or they love what I'm doing, at least it shows that what I'm doing is affecting them. I get satisfaction if I'm entertaining people and making them mad, making them cry. Whatever I'm doing, it's working.

So people have come up to you and told you that they hated you? Oh yeah. I remember one girl walked up to me the day after the first episode aired. She said, "I hate you. Your character is such an ass." I told her it's going to get worse. She started lecturing me. I have moms coming up to me, too, and saying, "You need to shape up young man!" I'm like, "Listen lady, I'm 25! I play a character on TV, we get scripts once a week — I don't write them, I just act them."

Have you found that you've had an easy time getting girls growing up? Oh I'm a huge dork. I mean if I were to say I was the coolest guy in the world I'd be lying, because I'm not. I'm just some guy who's been through a lot of the same things that everybody else has. Nothing has been easier for me. I go through the same trials and tribulations as everyone else.

Do you have any nicknames? My really close friends call me "Mi" — they get away with that. If you don't know me, and you call me Mi, I'm not going to talk to you. Seriously I won't. That's what my family and best friends call me. When I was in third grade people called me Meatloaf. I guess because I'm vegetarian and meatloaf starts with M and Milo starts with M. Because I was an actor they'd call me Hollywood. Now as I get older me and my friends start to refer to ourselves as the A-Team. They call me Face.