Nikki Reed on Selfie Culture and How She Got Over 'Twilightâ Body Insecurities
Nikki Reed. (Photo: Getty Images)
This interview is part of Yahoo Health's Body-Peace Profiles series, in which we talk with our favorite celebrities about embracing body positivity and healthy habits.
Nikki Reed may only be 27, but sheâs already an entertainment industry veteran. As a young teen, she was an actress and screenwriter for Thirteen in 2003, and has gone on to play roles that include the part of Rosalie Hale in the Twilight series and, most recently, Betsy Ross in the Fox series Sleepy Hollow.
But while fame and celebrity have always surrounded Reed, she has taken special care never to never it become her main focus in life â putting first instead her desire to explore and develop herself. Sheâs a self-described animal rights activist (and even has a mega-chic vegan bag line called Freedom of Animals) and finds true peace â and confidence â when sheâs able to spend time with animals.
Yahoo Health spoke with Reed about how helping animals is her form of meditation, the influence her two brothers have had on her outlook on life, and the role of social media in how young girls view their bodies today. Read on for our conversation.
YAHOO HEALTH: Itâs no secret that you love animals, and spending time with animals. Is that your form of self-care?
NIKKI REED: It kind of is. Any time I spend with animals is self-care for me. I volunteer at a lot of local shelters; people will always joke, âNikki will always find a shelter.â Itâs kind of like my meditation. Iâll take care of the dogs, play with them, love on them, post photos of them on my Instagram. One shelter â they were like, âOh, we have increased foot traffic 70 percent since youâve started here!â And they had no idea for the longest time what I did for a living, or what my husband (Ian Somerhalder) did. So itâs kind of cool â you become part of that community, you walk in with your sweatpants, and play with animals that need love. Itâs totally my meditation.
And then another big method of self-care for me is being outdoors. I have a very outdoorsy family â my brother has a company called Surf Yoga Beer that has retreats and adventures, and teaches you how to surf and do yoga. They have this vegan chef who goes to all these amazing places.Â
What is it about spending time with animals thatâs meditative for you?
Itâs a language that doesnât need words. I find thereâs such an ability to connect thatâs based on feeling. And I think that we as a culture are now so fast-paced â what can I read, what can I see, what can I scroll through on my Facebook page? â and I think thereâs something really peaceful about the connection that we have with animals that doesnât require words.
And Iâll be honest with you: Especially when I go to the shelters, it takes a certain level of conditioning because you know you canât save them all. And I have such a soft spot for the older dogs in the shelters, because I find it so unfair that theyâve been dealt that hand. The older dogs â who are 12, 13, 14, and maybe their owner just passed away from old age â why do they have to be on the shelter floor? It literally just wrecks me. If I had one dream, it would be to start a rescue for just senior animals that have little to no chance of adoption, even if itâs just living out the last two years of their life in our living room.
Also â itâs catching on more now, with people realizing how therapeutic animals are for children and people with disabilities â but animals are therapeutic for everybody. Iâm coming out here and brushing my horseâs mane, or talking to her, or playing with her nostrils, just little things like that. It teaches you to be in tune with your own body and with your own surroundings, and the power of touch. We donât touch each other very much anymore â we live in a world where you can be dating someone before you even meet them because of Snapchat! Thereâs real power in hugging people or an animal.
Nikki with her German shepherd, Enzo. (Photo: Instagram/iamnikkireed)
So, youâve been in the entertainment business for a long time â your career technically started when you were a teenager, writing and acting in the film Thirteen. How did being in the public eye at such a young age affect your formative years â particularly your perceptions of yourself and your abilities?
Thereâs definitely two sides to that. I was in the public eye at such a young age, but I made a conscious decision for many years, actually, to keep myself very removed from being in the public. So for example, after Thirteen, I actually went back to regular high school, and then I ended up graduating two years early and I got my GED. And then not long after that, when I was shooting the Twilight films, I made a conscious decision between films: Instead of staying in town and capitalizing on the momentum and all that, I put my life, my desire to explore and go on adventures, and to develop myself, all before my actual career. I guess in a sense, if youâre looking at it from the career standpoint, I shouldâve made sure I was at every event, but from a human standpoint, Iâve always really admired my brotherâs path.
My older brother and I are only a year and a few months apart; we grew up almost like twins. By 20 years old, he was living in other countries, studying abroad, teaching English as a second language, studying art in Florence â and he showed me that I can have both. Maybe my career can take longer to take off, or I can always be that indie actress who always studies her a** off. And yes, hopefully, Iâll always have work, but I have to close my eyes and go with what my heart wants. I have to do what feels good to my soul, and thatâs why Iâm always in school. Iâm enrolled in a different college course online all the time, because Iâd rather spend my time studying and doing homework for a class that wonât necessarily take me anywhere because itâs not for a degree, but I do it because I want to acquire knowledge.
It sounds like your brother has had a big influence on you, in terms of how you approach life. Can you tell me more about that?
Well actually, I have two brothers: Nathan is just a year and a few months older, and then Joey is the baby brother â heâs 16.
Nathan and I â I think we both look up to each other. You kind of keep the other person in check, because thatâs what siblings do â especially ones as close as we are. Itâs so important in this business to surround yourself with family, because what Iâve found in this business is that it can breed a lot of qualities that can only be undone through family and through struggle. Iâm talking about the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows that come with success. Until you have gone through a number of years in a career where you know what itâs like to be important, then not important, then important again, and then not â those ups and downs are so humbling and invaluable. Without them, youâre only surrounded by âyesâ people. When you donât have people around you who show you consequences, like a brother would, itâs impossible to grow.
So yes, my older brother has definitely influenced me. But my little brother is also teaching me what itâs like to actually be an individual at an age where itâs so hard. Joey runs five to 13 miles a day. Sometimes, weâll go to dinner and Iâll say, âHey meet me at 6:30 at this cafe in Venice,â and heâll show up dripping with sweat because he just ran 12 miles to get there! Itâs so cool to watch him figure out who he is, and itâs giving me this whole new sense of inspiration. It doesnât matter how close or far apart in age you are; you can still feel inspired.
We all have those moments of negative self-talk. What advice have you given yourself for getting out of a negative thinking spiral?
If I could talk to my younger self, I wouldâve told myself to be gentler to myself. Because there comes a time when everything you thought mattered, in terms of physicality or standards â all of that stuff becomes so irrelevant and unimportant. And you start realizing what youâre actually meant to do on this Earth.
And then it also matters a lot where you place yourself, and what you expose yourself to. It definitely affects how you feel. Kids are so inundated with all of this crazy media stuff, where theyâre being told what theyâre supposed to look like â and thatâs just a miserable, miserable way to live, to only think about that. How about thinking about what makes you feel good? Or how strong you can be? I would much rather know that I could climb to the top of a mountain because Iâm healthy and strong, than making sure I only had a certain percentage body fat and weighing myself every day.
You hear about women having these revelations once they have babies: âI realize what my body was made for, and I have a whole new respect for my body.â And thatâs so amazing. I feel like I had that revelation when I stopped caring â and itâs not that I donât care about what I look like. I think, to some extent, itâs healthy and wonderful to care about that. But when that becomes more important than your health, than how you treat yourself and your body, thatâs when thereâs a problem.
But itâs about finding other ways to feel beautiful. From the time I was a child, my dad always said, âAn educated woman is the most beautiful woman.â Thatâs why at 27-plus years old, I care so much about going to school still, even though itâs not going toward a degree. Itâs so important to me to feel like Iâm constantly learning and growing. That makes me feel beautiful and sexy.
Itâs all about finding other ways to feel beautiful, otherwise youâre just chasing something forever. I experienced this a lot when I played Rosalie in Twilight. If youâre not familiar, this role was supposed to be characterized as the âmost beautiful woman in the world.â Thatâs how the part was written. And when youâre cast to play that character with that description, thereâs an inevitable amount of external and internal criticism. Suddenly, youâre wondering if youâre able to play that, and youâre listening to the rest of the world say, âThatâs not who I would describe as the most beautiful woman!â I had to find myself â and I was only 19 when I first starred in those movies â and I remember thinking to myself, I need to write my own story about what that meant to be the most beautiful woman in the world. And I finally realized: Thereâs no pressure on me, because that woman doesnât exist. She just doesnât exist. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And all of a sudden, there was no more pressure to meet those standards.
Nikki playing Rosalie Hale in Twilight. (Photo: Twilight/Summit Entertainment)
I grew up slightly rebellious by nature, and I think Iâve always been like that as a kid. I questioned everything and combated everything. And then as I got older, that turned into natural teenage rebellion. But when I changed into an adult, itâs transformed into a softer version, where itâs no longer about finding myself, but finding comfort in staying true to my morals and values and also experimenting with, âWho do you want to be?â â where itâs not a form of rebellion, but growth and knowledge.
When you grow up in a business like this, everyoneâs watching you go through all these things that everyone goes through. So these kids are finding out who they are and what they want to be, and for some reason, we want to shame children for going through that in this business. We want to use them as examples for why theyâre not the ideal role model. We set them up to fail, and discourage growth. And I find that to be really detrimental at times, because kids get so afraid of being criticized â theyâre more concerned with looking and feeling their best on the outside, in a way that might be superficial.
It doesnât mean that every girl has to be confident if theyâre still learning â thereâs no judgment! Everyone should be given the time and space to figure it out. I wrote a piece for Elle, where I have a column, and it was literally about figuring out what gives you that little tingle in your stomach â where youâre, like, âOh, this is what I want to spend all my days doing.â And youâll actually find that most of the time, young people, I feel, are actually happier when theyâre not on social media. Theyâre more relaxed and calm when theyâre not dealing with the pressures that come with seeing how many likes their picture got, which is basically now part of this ânormalâ day-to-day routine we have now handed kids.
Social media has also changed our perception of body image, of whatâs real. Weâve been idolizing models forever â the Kate Mosses, the Twiggys â and then of course we use children in the fashion industry to model what real womenâs bodies are supposed to be. We have such a distorted perception of whatâs real, and thatâs even more so now that we have the ability to basically Photoshop from our phones. Not only is this affecting the girls who are seeing those altered photos on social media, but itâs also affecting the girl whoâs posting the photo. She now feels like the real version of herself isnât good enough, because the one that people like is the filtered one she put out there on social media.
So now, itâs not the other girls who are looking at the images of other people and feeling bad, but itâs the girl herself who no longer feels good. And I think thereâs a much greater conversation that needs to be had at some point, between us and these giant platforms. Because even though they do a lot of good, we have to figure out a way to regulate [them].
Thatâs a big thing to tackle. Do you have any ideas for how to do that?
Maybe itâs a bunch of celebrities coming out and saying theyâre not going to take selfies anymore, or maybe itâs using their social media platforms to talk about their surroundings or whatâs educational, or to show off their artistic tendencies.
Iâve thought about in the past, too, doing some sort of book that was literally just photos in the raw, so people could feel encouraged to actually show themselves, their real selves, to the world. Or not even to the world, it could just be to themselves. But it would inspire you to take a moment to appreciate whatâs real, and find the thing on your body that you think is your greatest flaw, that you hate the most, and actually find a reason for why itâs your best asset.
When I was a kid, I hated this mole thatâs by my lip. I hated it so much. But now, as an adult, itâs one of the things that kind of creates that uniqueness. People see it â they know that mole.
And it doesnât even have to be physical. I used to be really hard on myself, because I liked to be alone a lot and I wasnât a social butterfly. I only had, like, three friends, while my brother always had 1,000 friends. But I realized, as I got older, thatâs a really cool thing â Iâd rather spend my time writing, spending time reflecting, or hanging out with my three friends, than hang around people who arenât necessarily contributing to the conversation.
But finding that one thing about yourself is a good exercise to do. The mind is powerful. Every day, tell yourself something that you love about yourself: Turn the most insecure thing about yourself into something you love, until you find a real connection with that thing.
OK, last question! As part of Yahoo Healthâs Body-Peace Resolution, we want to know: Whatâs your definition of having âbody peaceâ?
Body peace canât exist without mind peace. Itâs all-encompassing. So, I would say âbody peaceâ is an all-encompassing feeling of being content with where you are in that moment.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Body-Peace Resolution is Yahoo Healthâs January initiative to motivate you to pursue wellness goals that are not vanity-driven, but that strive for more meaningful outcomes. Weâre talking strength, mental fitness, self-acceptance â true and total body peace. Our big hope: This month of resolutions will inspire a body-peace revolution. Want to join us? Start by sharing your own body-positive moments on social media using the hashtag #bodypeaceresolution
