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"  We like her as a pretty blonde It Girl on Pretty Little Liars, but Ashley Benson in person is true love. She&amp;#039;s chill, confident, and clear on what she wants at work (paging Woody Allen) and in love (only low-maintenance guys should apply). Meet your new celebrity spirit animal. If you didn&amp;#039;t know better, you&amp;#039;d think California girl Ashley Benson was a native New Yorker, rolling around NYC&amp;#039;s Meatpacking District in leather leggings, hard-knock boots, horn-rimmed glasses, and not a stitch of makeup. With her hair dyed caramel brown forWebcam, a thriller she&amp;#039;s shooting in Brooklyn, she could pass for an off-duty Scarlett Johansson. When I tell her this, her eyes light up. &amp;quot;When I was 15, I was her stand-in for a Dolce &amp;amp;amp; Gabbana campaign,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I love her so much!&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s no lie. She tells me she booked her hotel using a name from one of Johansson&amp;#039;s films. &amp;quot;They wouldn&amp;#039;t let me check in,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It took forever to convince them it was really me.&amp;quot; You can&amp;#039;t fault the staff for being thrown off. Benson&amp;#039;s nothing like her character, Hanna Marin, on ABC Family&amp;#039;s Pretty Little Liars, the leader of a crew of impeccably groomed high schoolers. It&amp;#039;s some thing she takes issue with, recently taking to Instagram to protest a publicity shot, writing, &amp;quot;Way too much Photoshop. We all have flaws. No one looks like this.&amp;quot; Whether she&amp;#039;s tweeting truth-bombs or staging a three-way in last year&amp;#039;s Spring Breakers, Benson is unafraid to rock the boat, as she proved when she sat down with Cosmo. strong&amp;gt;Love your darker look! Who has more fun, blondes or brunettes? Brunettes! Brown hair makes me feel more myself. As a blonde, I get categorized as the bitchy popular girl for roles, and I just want to be the normal girl. So you&amp;#039;re not like Hanna? The only way I&amp;#039;m similar to her is that she&amp;#039;s sarcastic and she&amp;#039;s always having fun \u2014 that&amp;#039;s me too. Once, I stuck gum on Keegan Allen&amp;#039;s coat collar, so when he leaned back, it got caught in his hair. May we say ... your show is so confusing! I know! It&amp;#039;s so confusing if you don&amp;#039;t see it from the beginning. Sometimes when I get asked in interviews, &amp;quot;So what&amp;#039;s happened so far?&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ll look at the publicist, like, &amp;quot;Help me out here!&amp;quot; Do you ever wish the characters were more down-to-earth? The thing I always make fun of is the wardrobe. Really, do you think anyone would actually wear full hair and makeup and 6-inch heels to school? I was 13 when I was last in school, and I never wore makeup. I wasn&amp;#039;t allowed. Now [girls are] all wearing heels and makeup and getting their hair done, so I&amp;#039;m not sure it&amp;#039;s us influencing girls or that&amp;#039;s just the way it is now. If I had gone to high school, I would have rolled out of bed and showed up in sweats. I mean, I want to work with Woody Allen; that&amp;#039;s one of my goals. And every film he does, the wardrobe is so simple, no makeup or hair, and that&amp;#039;s what I love in a movie \u2014 a natural human being, not dressed to the nines, false lashes, all done up. What are your other goals? I would love to be able to do my show and do movies. Once the show ends, I&amp;#039;m going to be so sad because it&amp;#039;s gotten me to where I am, and we have the best fans. Does the cast hang out or are you tired of one another by now? You&amp;#039;d think we&amp;#039;d be over each other, but we get along, which is so surprising. We&amp;#039;re all finding our own paths. Lucy is doing music, and she&amp;#039;s awesome. Shay is a philanthropist and wants to save the world, and Troian is like me \u2014 she wants to do film. We&amp;#039;re all tight and supportive of each other&amp;#039;s goals. We all pretty much go for the same stuff, so that can be weird, but at least it&amp;#039;s someone we know and love.  How have you changed since starting the show at age 19? I had just moved out on my own, so I was in this &amp;quot;I can do whatever I want&amp;quot; mind-set. I never did anything too wild, but I&amp;#039;ve become more mature. A lot of 24-year-olds in Hollywood like to go out and party and get wasted at clubs, and that&amp;#039;s such a gross look to me. I&amp;#039;m a total grandma. I just want to eat, watch a movie, and go to sleep. But you saw some wild things filming Spring Breakers ... We filmed with real kids on spring break \u2014 people were drinking and smoking weed everywhere. We saw girls who were completely naked and on top of each other. I kept covering Selena&amp;#039;s eyes! What about the three-way scene with James Franco and Vanessa Hudgens? Vanessa said she was glad you were there. I don&amp;#039;t think I would have been able to do it without her, just because I&amp;#039;d never shot a sex scene before, let alone a three-way. We were pretty adamant about not showing everything. How do you negotiate when you are being pushed to get naked? I make it clear that I have a line. Everyone tries to push you, and it&amp;#039;s easy to get talked into doing those things. I&amp;#039;ll just walk off-set: &amp;quot;If that&amp;#039;s the way it&amp;#039;s going to be, then you can do it without me.&amp;quot; But not everyone realizes they can do that. So what is your line? I never want to do nudity that&amp;#039;s gratuitous. Girls look so much better in lingerie or a tee shirt and leave the rest up to the imagination. I remember we were filming Spring Breakers with this girl who was topless, and I tried to have a serious conversation with her. Why would you want to go topless for a film that you may not even be paid for? But some people will do anything to get out there. It&amp;#039;s crazy that someone can make millions of dollars and have a whole career from a sex tape. But for everyone like that, there&amp;#039;s someone like Selena, who&amp;#039;s classy and holds herself together. You had a very early start in Hollywood, at age 10. Were you ever fearful reading about what happens to many kid stars? I&amp;#039;ve never been fearful. I know myself, and I know I would never do drugs. There are drugs and alcohol in my family on both sides, so I&amp;#039;ve seen lives ruined, going to jail and all that. Once you start with any drug, it can be an addiction \u2014 that&amp;#039;s why I never want to start and am not even tempted, because that chain is relentless. And if it runs in your family, you see how unglamorous it is. I would never want to be out of control with my body. I need to be in control at all times.  In a relationship too? What do you look for in a guy? Someone who doesn&amp;#039;t take himself so seriously but who&amp;#039;s super positive, goal-oriented, trustworthy. I&amp;#039;m very go-with-the-flow, and I like that in a guy too \u2014 someone relaxed and unafraid to be themselves. You&amp;#039;ve been on and off again with Ryan Good, who was Justin Bieber&amp;#039;s stylist. Ryan is one of the strongest people I&amp;#039;ve met, so grounded and such a positive influence on people. We took a break because it was so hard. I work 20 hour days, so I&amp;#039;m always gone. So a lot of your relationship is on the phone and iChatting and trying to catch up. Did he ever try to style you? Oh my god! Never! That would be a total turn-off. In any relationship, I look for someone who can hold me up and who I can also hold up. There are relationships where someone is unstable, and if you&amp;#039;re trying to grow and your partner is not there and not sure of him- or herself, you can come crashing down. So if you have two forces that are so strong and independent and positive, then it&amp;#039;s all about that for me. For more with Ashley Benson, click here to get the issue in the iTunes store! Photo credit: Matthias Vriens-McGrath "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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