Quotes from Shannon Purser

I didn't get recognized a whole lot at first, but all of a sudden it just started happening. People would look at me out of the corner of their eye, deciding whether or not they were going to come up to me!

I did have an emo phase. It was sort of like armor for me.

Instagram is great but I'm not an amazing photographer and I don't wanna post selfies constantly.

Looking back on my wardrobe from 'Stranger Things,' I would probably wear a lot of it. I might style it a little bit differently but I like the pieces.

I didn't even have a career before 'Stranger Things' - it was my first acting job, my first time on a professional set, and my character wasn't even supposed to be a big deal - it all just exploded.

Being on set is just a unique and surreal experience, and it's one I always dreamed about having. And then I had it.

There's such a stigma around mental illness, and this idea that you're going to come off as disturbed or weak somehow by being open about these things. I've never felt embarrassed or shy talking about it; it's such an integral part of my life.

I didn't really have a normal high school experience. I was home-schooled and went to a co-op, so basically a school with about maybe 200 other home-schooled kids that would come together for classes.

Technology is a double-edged sword for sure. You can use it to get in touch with somebody, to get to know somebody, to have really meaningful conversations, or you can use it to hurt and bully people.

It's very important to me that people know that depression doesn't discriminate. A lot of people look at people who have depression and think that it's not legitimate because they're wealthy or it looks like everything seems to be doing fine. But it doesn't pick and choose. It can affect anybody in the brain, no matter how perfect your life seems.

I think the media in general hasn't been very kind to fat women or fat people. We see so many insensitive portrayals of plus-sized people. That kind of stuff really affected me - not even necessarily the portrayal of fat people, but the absence of fat people.

I've been singing since I was a kid, but I take my voice a lot more personally than my acting. I feel a lot more personal criticism when somebody tells you that you don't have a good voice.

I mean, I definitely relate to not being a part of the popular crowd.

I guess everyone's had an experience when they felt overlooked, ditched, hurt or taken for granted. Where they felt like the only one behaving with common sense but still got the short end of the stick. We all feel like the odd one out at some point.

I was always taller than every other boy my age. So, whenever there was one boy who was taller than me I was like, 'Yes. He's the one.' Even if he definitely wasn't.

I do feel like young people feel pressured to be extraordinary in a new way. Of course everybody is extraordinary in their own special way... but not everybody has been an activist, or volunteered somewhere incredible, or has perfect scores. So it's a lot of pressure to put on young people.

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety several years ago, so it's something I've been battling most of my life.

People have actually had my face tattooed on to their bodies, which is so odd.

Stranger Things' was my first job, and I was learning everything as I was doing it and it was such a whirlwind.

I just think about little me - what it would have meant to me to see a chubby girl in movies and a big girl get the guy and be the princess, be the hero. I think that would've really changed a lot for me.

I'm excited to see a new age of rom-coms, and especially teen romantic comedies, because when I was younger, I was watching 'Harry Potter' and 'Hunger Games' and stuff like that. I loved those movies, but they are a little bit heavy. We didn't really get to have the lighthearted love stories.

I think people find it so easy to write off teenagers and millennials as just being like these shallow, self-centered people who don't have anything real going on and who are always just on their cell phones. But being a teenager is really hard.

That's what I love about movies and TV: You can go anywhere any time and be whoever you want.

When you're on stage, you're playing to whoever is in the back of the room, and TV and film is so much more detailed and nuanced, but I think that's what I always wanted to do. As much as I love theater and musical theater and would love to do it again, I really love the subtleties of film and theater acting.