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.

I don't feel like my work is dependent on my size. I feel like my work is dependent on the fact that I'm an everywoman. I'd be an everywoman if I lost 20 pounds or if I gained 50 pounds, because of my attitude and it's my relationship to the world and the fact that like I have two front teeth that are bigger than the rest of my teeth.

It's very easy for me to say what success is. I think success is connecting with an audience who understands you and having a dialogue with them. I think success is continuing to push yourself forward creatively and not sort of becoming a caricature of yourself.

I didn't drink in the essence of the classroom. I didn't take legible notes or dance all night. I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and we'd make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened.

I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.

My parents are artists; in their world, in the world of modern artists, you are supposed to just go into your studio and tune everything out, and your entire relationship with your work is supposed to be a super private one. That was the way to do it and you weren't deeply truly artistic if that wasn't the way you were engaging the press.

In Hollywood, you've got a hundred people on set, and shooting the sex scene you're wearing nude-toned underwear and tape on your nipples. Nothing is going beyond where you want it to go.