There's something in my voice tonally that's like a boy, so I started being able to do boy voices and to be known as having a naturalistic boy tone without pushing it.
I don't think I have a demographic. I was at Comic-Con in San Diego recently, and I was doing a signing, and my line was all military guys, young girls, housewives and guys in wheelchairs. There was just everybody all over the place.
The thing about women playing boys is that we're not going to age, and we're not going to go through puberty in the middle of a long-running series.
One of the things I learned in animation is that you never, ever want to start doing a voice that you can't sustain for four straight hours.
You can't regulate what these kids are being exposed to on the Internet. It's so way out of control. All you can do is just try to talk to your own kids.
I try to direct myself the way I direct the other actors who come on my show.
I just like to keep things small and subtle and authentic, and ground everything in reality. So that is something that I feel is my strength as a director and I try to achieve as an actor.
I can't imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn't that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct 'Better Things'? I wonder what that would be like?
You've gotta leave enough space for your actors to bring stuff to the table and whatever the weather's doing that day or what the light's like. Things can shift, and you have to be malleable. Every day is a different feeling and a change.
'Roseanne' was massive for me. I adored that show. I mean, the show was this couple who weren't cookie-cutter, and they were sexy, and we know that they like to have sex with each other, and they flirted, and then they ragged on their kids, and their kids ragged on them, and it was such a realistic depiction.
I am a single mom of three girls, and I'm getting through that. If I can get through that, I can direct a whole season of television that I star in.
You can go in and out of love and still love somebody, you know? You may not like them so much on the day, but I can tell you that I don't think I've ever been so vulnerable or been so angry in my life - like, those two emotions feel so hurt or so enraged - as when you're dealing with your kids.
They would call me 'The Cleaner' because I would replace boys who were real adolescents, and their voices completely changed, and they couldn't do the voices anymore.
My life is extraordinary because it's so normal, but it's so 'extra' for some reason.
I get up at 6 A.M., and sometimes I make lunch for my two youngest kids. Usually my oldest sleeps late, and I get my kids out the door to school. For years, it was me just doing all of that and then driving to a carpool or this or that.
I'm trying to keep my days very efficient, and I keep my set really tight. Every single corner is active, and everybody gets to thrive in the job that they do. I don't waste people's time.
I've been working since I'm 9 years old.
I want to elevate the mundane.
I always tell young people when I'm trying to encourage them, 'You have certain windows in your life, and you have to take advantage of it. You gotta jump through because they will shut on you.'
I'm more of somebody who'll bend over backwards for people and, you know, wait at the back of the line until everybody's taken care of. That's really my nature.
