I didn't have to wait six years to get my show on the air, worry that someone else had a similar idea, or wait around for notes that took my voice out of the show.

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.

My parents were open about sex. And my dad makes paintings that have a sexual component and it still scares me.

I was raised on the internet.

It's a very specific body. Even great reviews will be like: chubby, portly, overweight. . . . Sometimes I'm like, 'Ugh, how did I make myself the guinea pig for this?' But on the other hand, hating my body has not been my cross to bear in this life. Which I feel very lucky about.

I think Grace [Dunham] and I are always working from a personal place, and the fact that these were issues that we'd been talking about in our own families really clicked, but also Jason's [Benjamin] passion about it and his clear sense that this was going to be something emotional and remarkable to watch. It was very hard not get excited about it and want to help in any way we could.

There is no way that my mother hasn't influenced my career. She's my first critic. She's my best critic. She has the best instincts from writing to style to editing, to the visual elements of my career.