Back at high school, there was this quarterback who asks me out. He's never paid attention to me before, but now we're on this date, going to see the 'Sixth Sense.' And right before the climax, he leans in - and I'm so excited, because I think we're going to French-kiss - and then he tells me the twist. He completely ruins the movie for me.
Jenny Slate
'Obvious Child,' the short, had a nice life online and a great festival run, but the short and the feature still stand apart from everything else I've done. I play a woman who you might meet in life. My other work is much more heightened.
I've called myself an accidental activist because I came to it not on purpose.
There's so much interference, so much static and people's voices talking about what you do and why you do it that I've learned to be like, 'No, no.' It's actually simple. I just do this.
I think I was aware when I started doing stand-up, especially on my own, that, yeah, I'm getting up on stage, and I'm a woman, and I dress in a sort of typically feminine fashion.
There's not one type of stand-up, just like there's not one type of woman.
If I'm going to have baked goods in the morning, the rule is that I have to make them myself.
I learned my lesson early in my career that it's not helpful to go and look at what other people's opinions are.
I always loved to sing and was very, very loud. I wanted to be a movie star, like Judy Garland.
You are not waiting for your life to start. It's going on right now.
I think it's important to not just speak to like-minded people.
I hope that the restaurant I go to will have buffalo chicken fingers. I hope that one day I can work with Matt Damon. I have big and little dreams, and they're all equally important to me. A life without buffalo chicken fingers, I don't know if I would want that life. Even if it meant I got to work with Matt Damon. Everything has its worth.
'Saturday Night Live' will always be this amazing, powerful behemoth, but it's also not the only thing happening in comedy anymore.
I got great sex education, and I always knew that if I wanted to be sexually active, I had to have safe sex.
I'm usually a fairly harsh critic. It depends. I tend to really not watch my work, because I just feel uncomfortable, and I can be highly critical.
Using creative expression as a means to a professional end makes me curl up a bit.
Usually what is difficult for me are things that make me feel scared. That's when difficulties rather than challenges arise.
It's exciting to play someone who is a bit tougher than I am. I liked feeling those adjustments.
I don't have any horror stories of trying to start as a comedian and eating it constantly on stage.
It's strange: I've done so many things up until I did 'Obvious Child,' including writing children's books and making 'Marcel the Shell.' To me, the through-line is incredibly clear: it all comes from wanting to be connected to my own inner voice and not wanting to be on somebody else's agenda if that means that I can't be myself.
I've become very interested in the ways things can change even with someone you've known for many years and you've committed to for life. How drastic can you damage things in the way you speak to someone?
I always thought that farts were funny, and I always thought that they were mine to talk about because they came out of my body.
It makes a lot of sense to me that I would be a cartoon. I feel like a cartoon as a person. I really, really do.
You don't have to be in the brightest, shiniest state of being an individual to feel like you're exceptional.
If I'm not the best aunt in America, then I don't know what's going on.
That was something that I learned: It's actually okay if the way that I do my best is when I'm treated well.
I was a teenager in '95, so I didn't dress like a woman then. I was really small. I remember wishing I wasn't wearing Gap Kids.
My baseline function is I'm usually really happy and optimistic. I think I really genuinely like being alive, and I've got a spring in my step - that's what I've been like all my life.
The experience of the human, male or female, cannot be completely defined by one startling, surprising, or gigantic life experience.
When I was growing up, I was so fascinated by Mel Blanc and all of the different voices that he did for 'Looney Tunes' and watching Robin Williams record voice-over for the genie in 'Aladdin.' It always seemed to be a major honor - something you have to earn. Like people trust you when they want to have you there without seeing you.
There's a lot of different parts to me, so it makes total sense to me that I would do a big TV show or studio movie and then do a free comedy show the next day. They both feel equally important to me.
It's not good for me to see things while they're being edited. I can be highly critical, so I try to stay away.
Women love to be asked more about their clothes than their work. We're dolls; we made a wish to become alive.
I feel nervous when the script is set in stone, and I feel nervous when I feel the script is written for mass consumption because I don't see myself that way.
I had some friends that went to this hypnotist to stop smoking, and I kind of love things that seem magical. And I liked that it was in Santa Monica, and I had to go near the ocean to get my brain washed out or whatever. So I went there. And I went on a Thursday, and I got hypnotized.
I just really like it when things are earnest.
I'm tired of someone being called 'quirky' because they tripped or got a stain on their shirt. It's like a beautiful blonde lady who's quirky because she has bedhead, or she's quirky because she sometimes says the wrong, cute thing. I like it when women are quirky as human beings.
I think that, unfortunately, people who are maybe threatened by feminism think that it's about setting your bra on fire and being aggressive, and I think that's really wrong and really dangerous.
I never noticed my voice. I did become aware as a little kid at camp that I liked doing accents. We'd do plays and skits, and I realized I loved speaking in voices that weren't my own.
I really like working. I can't think of a job I didn't like. I was in an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, which is not my idea of folk art; but I really enjoyed making it, and everyone was really nice.
I fidget and change my outfit a lot. It's really a way of keeping myself comfortable.
I love waking up in the morning. It makes me feel really excited.
I sometimes think my earnestness is confused for stupidity, but it shouldn't be.
I tend to be a bit of a workaholic, but I also can't function without some sort of domesticity as well.
You're always putting yourself into your work. There's no separation; it's just how you use yourself and transform.
I like any film where the female characters are complex and have a functioning imperfection.
There's a whole thing now in the entertainment industry that's like, 'You need to write for yourself. Those are the people that are really valuable.' And it's just like, 'I don't want to! I just want to act!'
People say that the best part about doing animation is that you don't have to dress up to go to work, but I don't believe that. I dress up to go to work. I dress up for an airplane. I think it's just focusing your skillset, focusing on your voice and the comedy.
A woman who is not ready to have a baby making it work is not a happy ending to me. It's a personal nightmare.
I think that there have been a lot of fear-based assertions that feminism is about aggression, and that is incorrect and untrue. Feminism is about equality; that's what it's about.
