A question I get asked a lot is 'What is it like to play the straight guy all the time?' And I'm totally okay with it.
Rashida JonesI think there is this thing where people are impressed - it gives you a leg up in the sense that people won't treat you like a run-of-the-mill actress. They'll assign "smart" to your word bank, your adjective bank.
Rashida JonesThere's people who watch shows while they're preparing their dinners, and they don't want to focus, and they don't want to be challenged, and whatever. And then there's people who want to really sit down and get into a character in a world, and feel like they're expanding, or they have complex relationships, or whatever.
Rashida JonesWith any television series - and it's something that is taken for granted with movies because you have the whole arc within two hours - you establish who the character is and it's a two-dimensional version, or if you're lucky, a two and a half-dimensional character. Once you establish that, you can move forward and break all the rules. Once the audience has accepted who the person is, then you can do the exact opposite. What makes it funny and interesting is doing the opposite.
Rashida JonesThere was a time when I let go of the reins and thought, What's meant to happen will happen. That's probably one of my biggest faults as a person, and something that I've had to work really hard on: believing in this idea that the universe will decide for me. The universe is not going to decide in your favor.
Rashida Jones