Quotes

The voice of the male gaze is so loud, it can send a small representative to live inside your brain, to tell you what you should do, and how you should value yourself, and what actions aren't worth causing a fuss over. I think that it's up to us to kill that representative in our own brains.

My brain is a room full of women who take turns at the wheel.

I'm probably not a good fit for being super-famous. I'm too neurotic. So I'm not like, 'When am I going to get mine?' I'm enjoying flying under the radar being Windows '94 Jodie Comer. ... Math-wise, you have to have a lotion contract and a gazillion followers to be the lead of something, and I'm too neurotic for social media and my skin is too dry for lotion contracts.

[lacking confidence when she was young] Growing up, I was a self-loathing Igor who carried the queen's books. My job was to be the sarcastic Sherpa, quietly providing the farce and adoration then becoming part of the wall when cued. I don't know when it was, but at some point I realized the obvious truth that I was a hideous goblin under a bridge, that the sound of my voice was like audible feces, and the presence of my body in a room was like bringing a moose carcass to brunch.

[having large breasts] And then puberty was like, WA-BAM. Physically, I went from Justin Bieber to Jessica Rabbit. I gained 30 pounds of thigh, booty, and certified American jugs. And I quickly learned big boobs have the effect of announcing your presence in a room as if you're cradling Gilbert Godfrey singing the opening to the 'Circle of Life.'

[working on the TV series Glow] Glow was the first set I'd been on run by women. It was a magical never-never land run by type-A amazons. I saw power and care together for the first time. Seeing women possess those two things simultaneously was a huge lesson for me. Creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch commanded our set with a greater authority than any of the bro-gargoyles of yore, but with open arms, back rubs, and eye contact. This created the constant sense of: You are loved and celebrated-and now that you're comfortable, please give us your goddamn guts and soul so we can make the best thing possible.

[acting] Our business is a strange mix of attempting childhood dreams to a room full of asleep people and shirking dignity for awake tomato-throwers for rent.

[nudity] The first big TV job I auditioned for, I was told that getting naked on camera was the necessary toll to pay if I wanted the part.

In Three Women, the sex scenes are some of the most important scenes in the whole piece. For all of the [characters], the sex scenes are very altering, pivotal moments... you're seeing some get oxygen when they're about to die, or experience true joy and freedom for maybe the first time ever in their lives. When I've done sex scenes in the past, I don't think about my body as the character's body. I'm like, we have to make Betty's body look as fantasy-like or fake and smoke and mirror-y in order for the sex scene to go well. It felt more like a vessel for the real story instead of some algorithm box-check and that felt very freeing.

What I wish my daily style was: if Katharine Hepburn got stoned in Mykonos.