The official story is that she made a PowerPoint presentation, backed by Madonna's "Hollywood" and itself entitled "Project Hollywood," in an attempt to persuade her parents to allow her to drop out of school and move to Los Angeles. The pitch was successful and she and her mother moved to LA with her schooling completed at home while she spent her days auditioning.

She had her TV breakthrough when she won the part of Laurie Partridge in the VH1 talent/reality show "In Search of the Partridge Family" (2004) which led to a number of small TV roles in the following years. Her movie debut was as Jules in “Superbad” (2007) and, after a string of successful performances, her leading role as Olive in “Easy A” (2010) established her as a star.