June Diane Raphael Quotes - Page 2

[The Women's Room] is very much a white woman's piece of fiction, for sure. But for me, as a white woman, I related to a lot of it and continue to as I've gotten older, and especially at this moment in time, I want to read it again.

I do a lot of coaching with my friends on how to get out of relationships with their agents, boyfriends, contractors, whatever, because that's easy for me.

There were a lot of different things [in The Women's Room ]. I don't really want to summarize it in this way. It's about a woman's awakening, a woman who came of age in the '50s and is a teenager - actually, she's a little bit older - in the '60s and part of the women's movement and how she ends up there.

[The Women's Room] was the first thing I read that explained a lot of the feelings I was having and a lot of the rage and the feeling uncomfortable in my body and knowing that I was feeling a certain way in the world, but I didn't have the language for it.

It certainly wasn't taught in school beyond the idea of "girls can do anything that boys can do" - I understood that kind of pop culture feminism. I did not understand anything else about feminism.

Anyone who knows my professional history has known I've gone through a gazillion managers and agents or whatever. I'm like, "This doesn't feel right - moving on." I don't really suffer fools, which makes it easier for me.

That's one of my greatest strengths. I'm a Scorpio rising - we're very decisive. I'm very good at cutting things off that don't feel right.

I remember watching 21 Jump Street and thinking I'm attracted to Johnny Depp - "What are these feelings?" I remember all of this, the first time you feel things. I mean, yes, boys in class, whatever, but to specifically go back to those experiences, it's kind of amazing.

I'm not referring to an up-and-coming comedian. I am referring to the host of The Profit. He invests his own money into small businesses that need to be turned around. He becomes partners in them. And I love the way he does business, and I love his integrity, and I love where his head's at, and I love what he has to say, and I learn from him.

I've referred to [Marcus Lemonis] as my celebrity crush. I'm totally describing my celebrity crush, and that was not the question. But I am a fan of his. I really am.

I like the way [Marcus Lemonis] thinks. He's made me think about things in a different way. He's made me want to support small businesses in a very real way, seeing what these small-business owners go through and the struggle it is and the courage it takes to put your heart and money behind things at a 24-hour job. I think I relate to that as an actress and a writer and someone who works freelance, in many ways. It never ends, you never clock out. You've always got to keep things moving.

I'm afraid of death, obviously.

Writing pilots is such a specific thing. It's not even really writing TV shows. A pilot is its own beast.

I feel I've learned a lot about [experience of giving birth], and I think it's amazing. Men and women who are ob-gyns are pretty amazing.

I know that it feels dangerous and scary and working without a net, so to speak. And working without a net, for me - maybe other women do it a totally different way - means being vanity-free. That's how, as an artist, I know that I need to work.

I think I certainly know that the space I want to work in is a fearless space.

The sexual revolution... it was the first time I had read anything that came close to describing those feelings of being outside of my body, feeling the shame, all of it, that I really was able to connect to in that book. So it sort of blew my mind. I was also listening to Tori Amos at the same time, so I was like, "Wait, what's happening?!" It was all a part of that, probably when I was, like, 13.

It's very hard, I think especially for women, to not take it in and to not be super conscious of the way that you're being seen, which is of course completely antithetical to the work you want to do, which is completely free and bold and truthful and honest and brave.

I'm more focused or try to be more focused on my acting and writing and comedy and let the other stuff fall where it may.

I got very self-conscious about the way I look. So I, especially with young people coming into the industry and young actors, I feel it's really terrible to start with their looks. Right? Because especially for women, it just puts you in your head at a time when you should really be focused on your work and what you're saying and doing and not how you look.

I was like, "Everybody sees my characters. Nobody sees me!"

I think the worst professional advice I've received... I feel I've been lucky in that I've gotten a lot of wonderful guidance, but I remember - and I would never do this to someone - I remember going into a manager's office, the manager I had in New York, and this was way back when. And she said to me, immediately, "You should never wear striped T-shirts. You look much bigger than you are."

I'm on Grace And Frankie, which is also about that time in life, I'm realizing. But I would - so I guess I am sort of in that show. But there's something about The Golden Girls and the sort of multicam set and Bea Arthur that I just want to be around those ladies all day long, and I want to be on those comfy couches and want to sit in that kitchen in those chairs in those pastels, and I want to wear Blanche's outfits and it's just really... and I want to sit outside in that weird little courtyard.

I would spend the rest of my life inside The Golden Girls, of course. I feel like my dream is to just be retired and to really let it all out and to not give an F anymore, and so Golden Girls, to me, is that time in life.

One thing that I would like to do that I've seen them not do that well is take women all through the process of the postpartum period in a more meaningful way. That would be my agenda.