I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on 'The Facts of Life' to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.
Pamela Adlon
Sometimes when I'm in the car driving, I scream at the top of my lungs.
When you hit your 40s, you're walking around, and you realize, 'Oh, my God, men don't look at me anymore.' Or sometimes you can feel really good, and then you look in the mirror, and you're like, 'Oh, Jesus, that's my face now!' But I have tell you that something happened and shifted inside of me.
I love that, 'mommy-shaming.' When I was a new mom, I was obsessed with how I was being perceived and trying to fit in as a mom, going to mommy-and-me classes and things like that, and never quite measuring up to 'the real moms,' the 'robot moms,' as I called them.
Before 'Lucky Louie,' nobody would ever cast me to play a mom or a wife; nobody ever saw me in that role, which is weird, since that's who I really am.
Wouldn't it be funny if I were a total nightmare? If I just shot 21-hour days and went over budget? But, you know, it's something I'm really careful about, because I am a mom, and also, I'm an actor. I'm a pleaser: I don't want to take up too much of people's time.
Everything that happens to me in a day enhances my parenting.
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.
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.
Literally, FX is like, 'How can we foster your vision?' My vision is pretty much taking pictures of the way I see my life.
I'm very influenced by documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking, by a lot of noir and films from the '40s. Those are my favorite. And then, filmmaking from the '70s is a big influence for me.
I don't like to let people know where I'm going to end up, and I don't personally like to know where I'm going.
I've been adapting ever since my oldest had her first play date with a boy, and I was like, 'That's not normal,' because I came from the old school. Now boys sleep over at my house. It doesn't matter which girl, which age.
I like people to have their own reaction and their own take on things. And I don't like to shove my - what I want them to feel or think - down their throats. I like people to say, 'What was that about?' or 'Why did that happen?' And so, any reactions are welcome.
Sometimes when I'm in the editing room and there's a new person there, like a music editor or a post person that I don't really know, I'm like, 'Oh, you shouldn't be in here. This is too personal - you can't watch this.' But then I'm like, hey dummy, you're about to show this to the whole world.
I don't usually say 'working mom' because I think all moms are working moms. I feel like that diminishes moms. People should say 'working dad' as opposed to working moms.
The first thing that I ever made was a documentary that I shot... in downtown L.A. about a group of homeless people.
Cooking is the best occupational therapy for me. And when I cook, everybody comes to eat. It's the greatest thing.
Being a mother is the ultimate training ground for anything.
I never want to waste a frame. I always look and see what I've got.
When I saw 'Louie' and 'Girls', I was blown out of the water. They were fearless portrayals of real life. Everyone has a different experience.
If I'm doing a voice-over session, like animation or something, and I'm doing three different voices, you've gotta separate them. You've gotta find the different places and do your different things.
Everybody hates you when you're the best, and everybody hates you when you're the worst.
For me, running a set and directing has been the most rewarding thing of my life and a happy surprise, because it was never really on my radar.
My roles in the '80s were, like, gender dysphoric. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't this, I wasn't that. And I am kind of butchy, you know. That's just my thing.
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.
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.'
It's spelled, like, S-E-R-G. I always thought it would be funny if I called my son 'Sir.' Like calling your daughter 'Ma'am,' or something like that.
It's a hilarious part of my past, all the sitcoms I did in the '80s. And then all the animation - animation is amazing. It's really been great.
I'm somebody who, if I went to the grocery store, and one of them wasn't with me, I would feel guilty. I would be like, 'I shouldn't be doing anything without them, anytime, ever.' A very codependent way of thinking. Also, motherhood is hugely about guilt.
I learned so much from my life as an actor, as a kid actor through being an adult actor, and then becoming a writer and producer and doing animation.
I learned so much from the writing on 'King of the Hill', which I thought was just magnificent. They would let real moments happen in this animated, one-dimensional world. I feel like I've been in school this whole time.
I've always been interested in how other people live their lives, which is why it's important to engage fully even in painful times. And out of that, I get to laugh.
I've always been kind of a mom. I was out of my house when I was 18, and my friends used to call me 'mother' and 'care unit.'
