Quotes

I love telling dirty jokes. Sex is funny.

[on sex] It's an aspect of my personality. Sex is a part of who I am and it took me a long time to feel good about it. I wasn't sure if it was good or bad to be a person who really enjoys sex.

I always wanted to be the pretty girl, but I thought I wasn't. When I started acting and getting pretty girl roles, I felt like I was just pretending, and nobody saw I was just this big nerd.

I sleep as much as I want. I'll sleep like 11 hours, unless I'm working. Sometimes I do feel like - this is weird, I should just get up so I can fit into the world. Then I'm like - why? I don't have a nine-to-five job.

I'm not the kind of person who needs to be a mother no matter what. Life brings you people. Maybe I'll nurture someone who's not my child, like a friend, or an actor I'm working with who needs some love.

[on people considering her Californication character a MILF] She's definitely an overprotective mom. I can play the M part of MILF, but the rest of it... not much I can do with that as an actor. I guess that's for other people to decide.

[on choosing not to have children of her own]: I think we all have different paths. You just have to embrace the one that you're on. If, somehow, I had had kids, I'm sure that would've been cool. But at the moment, not having kids, I do feel free. And I get a lot of sleep. That is pretty great.

[trying to get movies made about women] Imean, people would say to me, "Nobody cares about women's stories. If you want to get a movie made, write about a man." And some of the people telling me that were women! It's not just the men! It's the system. It's just known that a movie is easier to get off the ground with a male protagonist. I finally got so frustrated that I was like, "Fine, I'm just going to write a movie and direct it myself."

[playing a dental hygienist in Californication] You know what the hardest part is? It's so personal to put your hand in someone's mouth. It's very strange.

[women supporting each other] I think we were brought up as women to feel there's not enough success to go around, that women are our competitors, instead of saying, "We have a sisterhood, and women are there to support each other." If you look at all the women who have come out about sexual harassment, it was very supportive because a lot of women just wanted to be there for each other.

[the book Extended Massive Orgasm] It's really cool! To be honest, in this society, women are really nurturing, and we're brought up to take care of other people. So we sometimes forget to ask "What feels good to me?" or "What do I want?" This book looks at sex in terms of what gets a woman off, as opposed to what gets a man off.

[film industry being sexist] It's a sexist world and a sexist industry. But I've been very lucky as an actress, to work as much as I have and as consistently as I have.

[sex] I grew up in a religious household and was told, "You're going to hell if you have premarital sex." So I grew up feeling that sex is scary.

[fairy tales] I wish I'd never watched any of those stupid fairy tales because then you expect the guy that you meet to be everything to you. You don't think, No, I need to make my own life great, and I need to feel good about myself as a person alone.