Born and raised in San Francisco, and a young actor in Los Angeles since middle school, Zoe Miner, 18, decided to go to college in the East — Bennington College in Vermont, to be exact. The small liberal arts school requires students to spend four seven-week internships in their field of study, so Miner sought out The Actors’ Group in Iwilei.

She was familiar with Hawaii as a visitor, but for the past month she’s been working — doing everything from validating parking tickets to helping with actor auditions — at TAG while a guest of one of the theater group’s board members.

Miner will be taking acting, writing and music classes when she returns to Bennington in mid-February.

JOHN BERGER: When did you decide you wanted to be an entertainer?

ZOE MINER: When I was 3, I announced to my family after watching “Barney” that I wanted to be on TV. My parents let me do some community things in San Francisco, and then when I was 10 they decided that we should move to L.A. so we could try it out more professionally. We moved for “one summer” but we stayed forever.

I did four or five national commercials and had parts in “The Four Twenty-One,” “Story About a Witch” and “Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot,” so I’ve been a member of (the Screen Actors Guild) since I was in the seventh grade.

JB: What was one of your most unforgettable experiences as an actor?

ZM: I auditioned for an Elmer’s Glue commercial and the people came to my house to audition me for the commercial. I got sent to “call back” — which is good — but I didn’t get the part, but my house did. So they were all at my house shooting the commercial with this other girl!

I was upstairs in my bedroom and they knocked on the door and said, “We don’t like this girl. We want you to do it.” I was 12 years old and I was so mad I told them no — but then I did the commercial.

JB: Is there something about you that might surprise people?

ZM: On my father’s side I’m Assyrian. Assyrians were a Christian minority in Iran — but we’re not Iranian or Arab. Assyrians have their own language, it’s not Arabic or Iranian, and it’s a dying language.

Even in my family, my dad speaks Assyrian but he didn’t teach me. All I know are the swear words.

JB: What would you like to be doing 10 years from now?

ZM: Acting and living in L.A. My goal would be working on a TV show as a series regular.