It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, maybe I'm just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. For a long time my acting was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing.

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it.

At a brunch potluck, I realize that I do, in fact, hate everybody.

As a woman who doesn't necessarily fit the beauty standard in Hollywood... I really related to the narrative of looking for something you felt comfortable in that would properly express your identity, especially when your identity didn't feel like it necessarily matched the one that was being imposed on you.

I frustrate myself as a writer. There are certain things that I'll think, 'Well, that would be really fun to play... if somebody else was playing this character.'

I always feel that there are two choices for women. Either be totally confident about your non-size-zero body and say, 'I love what I look like and this is who I am,' or be the person who is obsessed with diet and exercise and keeping toned. What feels more realistic to me is that some days I wake up and think I love how I look. On other days I say, 'If I had real self-control, I would be 10 pounds lighter.' That contradiction is, to me, what being a girl actually feels like.

I never set out to make any statements about a specific character, I just set out to tell what feels like is a truthful story, a person that you and I might truly encounter.