Did you do your own playing in the film?
Yes, that was me. Hopefully that will take me somewhere too. But I don't want to stop acting at all because it feels so familiar to me, it's fun, it's artistic, it allows you to get out these crazy emotions that you wouldn't necessarily even ever feel in your real life. I have a lot of respect for it but there's other things I'm looking to do with my life.

Are you still attending Columbia University?
Yeah, I blasted through my first three years with no pauses. Then “Bring It On” came out and all of a sudden the phone was ringing off the hook and it was like, “Alright, this is stupid. I should really be in LA getting my next job and riding this wave while I have it.” And so, that's what I did, I took my senior year off which I have absolutely no regrets about. Since then, I went back that next summer - the summer literally a couple of months after I would have graduated. I re-enrolled and got a couple of summer classes out of the way. Then I went back for a full semester this last semester. That semester ended right when the new year rolled around and now I'm taking this semester off and going back again in the summer and then I'll be done. I have just a little left, that's why I'm going to finish it over the summer.

Did your parents encourage you to act and to take a break from college?
It's fine. I really felt in my heart the whole time that I was going to get the degree. I just knew that even if it took me a couple more years than everybody else, I knew that I wasn't going to spend all that money, and all that time, and all that work - to not end up with that piece of paper. That's still how I feel about it. If it takes me two more years, then it takes me two more years. If I get it done right over the summer, then I'm done and I don't have to worry about it anymore. The finish line is literally - I'm like right in front of it at this point.

So if acting doesn't work out, you're not so locked on to any one thing. If this doesn't work, you'll be a rock star?
Hey, wouldn't that be nice if it's just that simple? Yeah, that would be great. I have other things that interest me; I have back-up plans you could say but I really don't think of any of them as a back-up plan. I think of them as the stuff I want to do with my life. Those are the three things, that and being a professional baseball player but I think I'm kind of past that point.

What kind of music do you want to play?
The thing I like to play the most is blues. That's just sort of what I started with and what I like the most, and where all my favorite guitar players come from.

Do you write your own material?
Yeah, I do. I'm not prolific really but I have a bunch of songs that I'm pretty happy with. I'm really, really hard on myself with the songs. If they don't sound to me like nothing I've ever heard before, then I'm not going to keep them around. I can name seven songs that all rely on the exact same notes but are different songs, and successful songs, but if I wrote a song that used those same notes that was different than those but used those same notes, I would [trash] it.