It's funny, I never considered that people are going to see me on the show and maybe stop me on the subway.

It's not brave to do something that doesn't scare you. Performing in sex scenes that I direct, exposing a flash of my weird puffy nipple, those things don't fall into my zone of terror.

On Girls I like being a mouthpiece for the issues I think young females face today. It’s always shocking when people question whether it’s a feminist show. How could a show about women exploring women not be? Feminism isn’t a dirty word. It’s not like we’re a deranged group who think women should take over the planet, raise our young on our own and eliminate men from the picture. Feminism is about women having all the rights that men have.

It doesn't occur to so many people that if you don't have a clear heterosexual, gender confirming identity that there are parts of day-to-day life - like using a bathroom or getting your clothes - that just aren't going to be as easy.

I am comforted by the fact that I find a real range of female bodies beautiful, and I hope that other people do too. And even if they don't find it beautiful I hope they're just glad that something like it is happening on TV.

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.

Barbie’s disfigured. It’s fine to play with her just as long as you keep that in mind.