People have always told me that I have a presence, but I never used to understand what that meant. Funnily enough, I’m learning about my presence as a human by playing a woman who is much more comfortable sitting silently in a room than I am.”
With Chicago P.D., Bush once again finds herself miles away from her L.A. home, working and living in the titular city that helps make the series feel authentic. But she’s come a long way since that North Carolina move more than a decade ago, and unlike last time, she has a decade of life lessons under her belt to ensure the mistakes of the past weren’t repeated.
“The biggest thing I learned from that time was to trust my gut instincts about people, both professionally and personally,” Bush said. “There was a time in my life when I would see behavior I didn’t like and think, The universe put us together for a reason; obviously I should stick it out and try to make it work.”
She added, “I wish I’d known to trust my instincts more, but that’s just life, though. When a red flag comes up and you ignore it because you’re trying to be nice or keep things easy, I’ve learned not to do that. I’ve really realized I don’t need to be a people pleaser. I don’t need to give anyone else’s opinions more weight than my own. My opinions should matter the most because they’re mine. And if your opinions are formed from a place of genuine honesty and kindness for others, then your opinions are worth defending — and now
I do.”
And these are the types of messages Bush is working on spreading to her nearly 1 million Twitter followers and half-million more on Facebook. Since the inception of those sites, Bush has used social media as a gateway to the world and a means of engaging her fans in intelligent, meaningful conversations about body image, self-worth, social responsibility, and human rights. Through this ongoing dialogue it becomes clear that Bush is not just working on fixing current world problems, she’s actively engaged in mobilizing the next generation of crusaders.
So, while other celebrities appear single-minded in their quests to perpetuate their image — and, therefore, their “brand” — by sending out messages like “a little side boob never hurt nobody” to millions of young, impressionable followers, Bush spends hours replying to individual fans, talking about their problems, their home lives, and their dreams: a job she doesn’t take lightly.
“To have conversations with people I’ll never meet but know on a soul level because of social media is amazing,” she said, hands clutched over heart as she talks about her Twitter followers and Facebook fans. “It’s so beautiful and inspiring to have conversations about real life stuff with my followers. We talk about how it feels be in love, and how to accept who you are; how we can own the good and the bad and everything in between about who were are as people without needing to apologize for it. I have all these humans who I may not really know but, in some ways, I feel like we know each other the best. I love them for who they are, and they love me for who I am — and not for who I am on TV or in a magazine, but for who I really am: all my excitable, loud, messy, sensitive, courageous tendencies. They love all of my stuff and I love all their stuff too.”
Chicago P.D. airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on NBC.