I could have hidden in Boston and lived at home for three years, gone through my transition, taken voice lessons to make my voice more feminine, gotten gender reassignment surgery, and spent time to complete my transition, but I didn't want to wait. I wanted to be in the world.

Hari Nef

Sexuality is who you want to be with. Gender identity is who you want to be in the world.

Hari Nef

I admire actresses who are willing to jettison the easy route toward exposure and commercial success as an actor in favor or a slow burn, choosing projects carefully, and building an artistic practice over time that feels specific to who they are as artists.

Hari Nef

I had family who exposed me to all sorts of different media involving actors - films, theatrical productions touring through Boston. My grandparents, particularly my mother's parents, were huge fans of all the arts, and they took me to these shows and exhibits at a very young age, so I was just immersed in it.

Hari Nef

Fashion gave me the platform that has made this transition from fashion to Hollywood, from East Coast to West Coast. Fashion gave me the platform that has made this easier than it is for a lot of other people. And I will always count fashion as the industry that was first to welcome me and embrace what I could do.

Hari Nef

I live in a little studio apartment, so I try to keep the space super clean at all times.

Hari Nef

Fashion has always captivated me because, like I said, it has the potential to create narratives about what's beautiful, aspirational, chic, masculine, feminine, glamorous, etc. Generally, this power is dispatched in useless ways.

Hari Nef

I could have hidden in Boston and lived at home for three years, gone through my transition, taken voice lessons to make my voice more feminine, gotten gender reassignment surgery, and spent time to complete my transition, but I didn't want to wait. I wanted to be in the world.

Hari Nef

When it comes to modeling, I always feel like my body is a myth or a story that is told by other people, and no one knows what my body really looks like.

Hari Nef

I liked playing video games because I felt like I was inside of the story in a way that I didn't feel when I was just watching something. Any chance I could get to step into the shoes of another person, I would take. I couldn't get enough of stories.

Hari Nef

There's something very noble about the bowling shoe. It has very little pretense, and it's kind of naughty. You have to share them with a bunch of other people, which is so kinky in a way that I like. What other shoes would you actively share with other people?

Hari Nef

If I ever called myself an activist, I regret it, and I was cornered into it by an industry who couldn't justify me taking up space without saying that I had some kind of radical political agenda because they saw my participation as a radical political thing. Which it was not.

Hari Nef

I see a Reiki healer from time to time. She sits on my bed, and I lie in her lap. She puts her hands on me for about 45 minutes, and she reads my energy. Whenever I'm having a hard time, I call her. I also go to weekly therapy, and that has been invaluable. Also, getting on medication for my 'neural atypicalities,' I guess we might call them.

Hari Nef

I search my name on Tumblr more than I Google myself, and I Google myself every day.

Hari Nef

In an ideal world, I wouldn't have to change my body. I wouldn't have to do all this stuff. I wouldn't have to be pretty or 'feminine,' and people would respect that.

Hari Nef

I keep a very cold apartment - I tend to crank my AC just about as low as it can go. I sleep with a big, warm comforter, even during the summer, and just burrow underneath it.

Hari Nef

My experience with 'Transparent' has completely spoiled me because it was the safest, most transpositive set ever. I didn't have to worry about all the usual things - like when people have a vision of your transness that you're not comfortable with. When they don't know the correct gender pronouns by which to refer to you.

Hari Nef

When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I 'do things in front of people.' I don't know why I do what I do. I've tried working behind the scenes. I felt left out!

Hari Nef

I was romantically socialized as a gay man, and now that I am, for most intents and purposes, a heterosexual woman, I have to learn how to talk to straight men, which is the scariest thing I've ever done.

Hari Nef

I'm fun, ruthless, articulate, impatient, maybe a little cavalier. I'm a woman and a feminist. I'm transgender. I'm an actress, a reluctant writer, occasionally a potato-shaped model.

Hari Nef

I got the Fire Stick as a gift at the Amazon Emmys after-party in 2015, and because I haven't lived in a house with cable television since I lived with my parents as a child, I've just streamed everything. I can afford cable. I have a television. But I only stream things.

Hari Nef