My senior thesis was a documentary. By the time I graduated from college, I thought I was going to make films, and my interest in acting was there but kind of confused.
— Gaby Hoffmann
When I was a kid, I wasn't making my choices based on anything other than 'Did I want to work that day?' or 'Did being in school sound more fun?' And I don't remember ever reading a script and thinking, 'Is this going to be a fun part to play?'
My mother certainly never altered the topics of her conversation based on children being present.
Nudity has never been a big deal to me. I sort of grew up with a lot of it in my family.
You can do your job and be yourself and be comfortable all at the same time!
I think anyone who behaves boorishly but without a good sense of humor is not as fun to watch.
It's true that most people in the trans community don't have the incredible wealth and privilege that Caitlyn does. I don't think that, in any way, diminishes her struggle in her own transitioning.
I was like, Amazon Prime? Who has Amazon Prime? It turns out everybody.
It's very odd that we have such an easy relationship to violence in this country, and we're still shocked by the female figure.
I've always looked the same, and every 10 years, I'm a little bit in fashion.
I was given an incredible gift growing up in the Chelsea, a space where it is completely fine to be yourself - you just had to figure out what that was. You didn't have to figure that out in the face of opposition at every turn.
It was sort of a solution to financial problems when I was a little kid. I just kept doing it because it's fun to be on movie sets.
I didn't even realize that I was interested in film until I was in college, and since then, I've had a very uncertain and sort of lost decade.
Oh, I'm pregnant on 'Girls.'
I really enjoy taking care of people, and I was really ready to have a kid, so I didn't have to sacrifice anything that I didn't want to give up.
I had a world of people who were raising me; it was like a little village.
Playing dysfunctional characters or crazy characters is only fun if they're well written. So I have been lucky enough to be asked to play crazy people who are very well written.
My mom grew up in a strict Catholic family and moved to New York and became part of the Warhol factory.
Too bad, whenever adults tell kids to enjoy their childhoods, kids are like, 'You don't understand anything,' and everyone is right.
I was raised in a way where there was no distinction between kids and adults.
It's hard to live in a blind and aimless - or dishonest, rather - narrative when somebody in your family is going farther toward - or at least think they are and say they are - their true self.
I thought I was a sexy symbol!
I actually voted for Nader.
I think that anybody coming out and saying, 'This is who I am, and let me show it to you...' is good for the world.
The amount of attention and sensitivity and education that we're getting in terms of specifically the transgender community is great, and certainly that's new to me. But it's not incredibly unfamiliar. I grew up in downtown New York in the '80s.
We all got driven out of Manhattan. It was a very conducive place for artists when I was growing up, and now it's definitely not. The city has been completely taken over by the rich.
I had a very long home birth. She was almost 10 pounds and did not want to come out.
Suburbia, to me, was the most fantastical, unusual place. I thought it was Disneyland.
My mother is the sort of a person who has no boundaries and no filter. She also has a big ego, but it's a very unique one. And I grew up with lots of artists in an environment where conformity and the norm were totally not what anybody was after.
I made a lot of movies that people loved when I was a kid, but I didn't have any real relationship to them.
I'm basically useless in interviews because I don't remember anything. But I find it very peaceful, actually, because I have a sort of busy mind. I'm like, 'This is great!'
Everybody I grew up with has incredible self-confidence and self-assurance. We were all loud, outspoken, wild kids and were celebrated for it.
I wanted to live in the suburbs and have a white picket fence and my own bedroom. And a staircase - I thought having a staircase meant that you were a normal family. I thought somehow if you could transplant us to the suburbs, we would become a normal family. But in retrospect, I'm so grateful I grew up in the Chelsea.
I met Jill Soloway at Sundance a couple years ago. I was there for 'Crystal Fairy', and she was there for 'Afternoon Delight'. She reached out and wanted to get together.
I went to school to study literature and writing, even though I didn't end up really doing that in the end. I thought I would be a teacher, but I didn't really think about it in any practical way.
I thought of myself as an adult trapped in a kid's body. Had I known what adulthood was like, I would have embraced childhood a little more.
I was born naked. I'm a natural. I'm a natural nude. So I've been on camera naked a lot.
History is weirdly dismissed as not having anything to do with the present moment.
I know that in my own personal life, the people who I have dated who are funny can get away with a lot more than the people who aren't.
I think that the fact that we had a trans woman on the cover of 'Vanity Fair'... is only good for the trans community. I can't imagine that the more we talk about this that it's not just doing everybody a lot of good.
Nicole Richie invited me to her birthday party, and it was at Michael Jackson's Neverland!
I've been very excited to have children for a long time. It definitely added an interesting twist to the night we screened 'Lyle' at Outfest, and I got up to do the Q&A, and I had this huge belly no one was expecting. It creeped everybody out in the best way.
I had so many faux-parents.
The biggest issue that we have to contend with is campaign finance reform.
Television has filled the space for actors that really want to make good work and not just make a lot of money and be famous for making a lot of money and being famous.
'Crystal Fairy' was one of the first movies I did after I recommitted to the idea of acting.
I just wrapped a new show for Amazon called 'Transparent.'
I think it's great anytime somebody can be in control of their own distribution.
If you needed to borrow a cup of sugar, you knocked on your neighbour's door.
It's so nice that there's all this new space for new, good content. It's good news for us actors, since nobody makes real independent films anymore.
