JANET VARNEY

I love doing comedy. But sometimes, that exists at sort of the mid-level to the high-comedy level of craziness, and I don't necessarily get to plumb the depths of kind of serious acting as often.

I have this weird thing where if I close my eyes, I feel like no one can see me.

I do feel like, because my podcast is so specific, I've been really fortunate in that the kind of people it attracts tend to have interests that run with mine.

We're living in this world where we have so much media all the time. We have access to imagery all the time.

I just want Emma Thompson to be my best friend.

'Bridesmaids' was phenomenal. It deserves every accolade it's gotten, and it's exciting for every woman in comedy.

It's great to be an actor, and it's great to embody something more than who you are.

I think, coming from an improv/sketch background, I'm just used to having people around me to feed off of and support.

I always say I owe my sense of humor to 'The Muppets' because I didn't necessarily know what was going on when I watched 'The Muppet Show,' and obviously, 'Sesame Street' was made just for me.

Typically, I'm put in high heels and a tight top, which is not my personality at all.

I don't particularly love watching myself on camera.

When you're a writer, if you're very lucky, you create these characters that you fall in love with, and you feel like they're guiding you rather than you guiding them.

I love doing voiceover.

I just love the geeky comedy boys! Those are the guys I go for.

There is an overarching comedy community, and then there are little comedy community pockets, almost like the way L.A. is structured. You have this grand scope of what Los Angeles is, but within that, there are all of these multi-functioning cities and neighborhoods.

I had a pretty normal, non-Hollywood life for most of my 20s in San Francisco.

If you go to my house, it's not like I'm 5, but I definitely have a lot of toys and weird, tiny miniatures.

Both my parents were high school teachers, and they were beloved high school teachers, so I constantly meet people through my dad's life where they'd be like, 'Your dad changed my life. He's the reason I became a lawyer. He's the reason I started writing. He's the only reason I stayed in school.'

I wish I felt that I acted like Korra in any part of my life. I really carry around 'Be the leaf' in my head. That's not a character, but it's something from the show that's really impacted my daily life.

Marilyn Monroe appeared to be perfect, but she wasn't perfect.

In general, the threshold for a woman becoming worried at how she's coming off in terms of asserting her power, that threshold is continually lower than it is for men.

I had such a sense of purpose when I moved to San Francisco, and the purpose was purely to be in that city, and I was going to figure out the rest.

Because I produce a comedy festival and because I write and all of that stuff, I've seen the relationship that actors can create, in a bad way sometimes, with the rest of the people they work with. I just want to be a good representation of, 'Actors are great! They're not what some people might think they are.'

I believe that truth is one of the most powerful tools we possess against victimization, exploitation, and fear.

When you share something about your adolescence, it's a way to roll over and show your soft underbelly when it comes to talking about your past and the person that you once were.