Lucy Hale ready to 'start over' after 'Pretty Little Liars'

April 28 (UPI) -- Pretty Little Liars star Lucy Hale says she's ready to "start over" after the show ends.

The 27-year-old actress, who plays Aria Montgomery on the Freeform drama, said in an interview with Byrdie that she's "itching to do something insane" once the series comes to a close.

"Fans think Aria and I are the same person," Hale explained.

"PLL was a great chapter of my life, but it's very exciting to start over."

"I'm itching to do something insane and crazy," she said of future projects. "Film is what I've always really wanted to do. There's nothing that I wouldn't try."

"It was very sad for me to say goodbye to Aria," the star qualified. "But I do love working. What I do is so gratifying 99 percent of the time. Being busy -- I get a thrill out of it."

Hale has starred as Aria throughout Pretty Little Liars' seven-season run. The show, which co-stars Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson and Shay Mitchell, will conclude after the Season 7 finale airs in June.

"She might get her happy ending, but Aria definitely has quite a dark path to go down in these last ten episodes," Hale told Entertainment Tonight last week at the Freeform upfront.

"It was, like, the first time I went to the writers and was like, 'Please give Aria something to cool to end with' and they listened," she said. "I got to do things I've never done before on this show and not only that but things that I've never done before in acting, period."

Hale also told Byrdie she quit drinking alcohol in order to be "the best version" of herself possible. She admitted she initially "tried really hard" to be a social butterfly when Pretty Little Liars got popular, but ended up making "mistakes."