I watched Obvious Child recently, coincidentally hours after the bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood in U.S. was vetoed–I lost all of my body water from crying very intensely. Afterwards, I read an interview where you were hesitant about being the representative of this issue, because you made a movie about one woman’s abortion. You seemed worried you weren’t expert enough to take that on, but you still found a way to be comfortable with your role–in the movie and during press. How do you get to a point where you feel comfortable tackling an issue and being honest and open?

There are some people who have a real designated place in that conversation. Those are the actual experts, and I’m so grateful they’re there. The turning point for me was [when] I expressed that fear to Gillian Robespierre, and she said, “I think it’s cool to be an activist in your own way.” So I asked myself, “What are the ways in which I’m an activist? What do I want for our world? And, what do I think is lacking?”

The goal should be that when you’re on your death bed, lying next to your body [there] is another beautiful body that isn’t physical, only you see it, and that body is your body of work. That to me is very comforting and exciting to imagine sometimes–who’s lying next to me when I’m dying? There’s me, my husband, and who’s on the other side of me as my body of work? What does she look like? Is it even me, is it even a woman, or is it an animal? A lot of times it’s an animal. [Laughs]

I think the reason why I’m satisfied as an actress right now is because I genuinely—and I’ve said this before—I’ve wanted to be an actress since I’ve wanted anything. That’s also why when at times I don’t feel supported by the people that I love, I become really rage-ful. I’m like, this is the one thing I’ve ever wanted for myself, you’re not gonna tell me that I can’t have it! I’ve gone to great lengths to achieve it with dignity. I think it’s a game that I played, until it became real. There’s nothing about my life now that I wish was different, and nothing that scares me about it. I think [back to] when I was little and taking a shower, I’d be using my grandmother’s shampoo that she got from a little bottle from a fancy hotel. I’d smell it and think, This smells probably like what Joan Crawford would use, or something! Every smell, every taste…I feel like for my entire life I’ve been putting it on and into my body, imagining what it would be like if I was to have everything I deserve. Do the people around me have that? Or are there some of us that aren’t getting what we most certainly should get? That’s a question anyone can ask themselves. It’s just realizing that the more people you have expressing why they are in this world and what they need as humans, the easier it will be to form a big group of people who are all helping out. They shouldn’t all be speaking in the same voice; they should be speaking in many different voices, so a change can happen.

If tomorrow I decide I wanna go and live in a tent and, I don’t know, have a totally different lifestyle, that will be on me, but I do think that people can tell when you’re doing something to promote yourself rather than to push an important issue into the right zone. That kind of action embarrasses me–I think it’s tacky and it’s cheap. I think you can tell when there’s passion behind it, and where there isn’t. It’s much better to do things to remind yourself that you’re kind than to prove to yourself that you’re important.

Kind of on the flip-side, the sort of authenticity race on social media with everyone being held accountable for how they display their private lives–that can be reductive and judgmental. There’s a difference between being a person with many sides that come out in different ways, versus a person who’s really putting something on.

Out of fear, everybody wants to simplify. We shouldn’t! I think about it a lot because I’m naturally a pretty lonely person. I get very lonely, really easily. I’m really honest—I can’t help it, and that’s good and sometimes really bad. I’ve thought a lot about this. I love posting selfies, especially posting pictures from photo shoots. It’s a very outward expression of me being like, “Look! Look what I became! I was a shrimp without any boobs and never had a woman’s body and I’m so happy that I’m all grown up! I feel really beautiful and I want you all to see, look what happened!”

Yes, the classic fairy tale, where the shrimp transforms into a swan.

I try to be not gross about it, but I’m also proud. I think it’s good to be proud of how you look. I’d rather to do that and have pictures of me that are clearly styled and editorial, rather than beat around the bush of how I feel about myself. Also, sometimes I look at myself and I’m like, How could you have done this? How could you have gotten to this place where you are so ugly? How could you have let yourself get so out of shape? Why did you cut your hair into a ball? That voice is my reiterative and boring super-ego just trying to gain control. I have to say, “Please go away,” because I’d much prefer the idiotic voice instead.

You know that part in Mary Poppins where those boys are like, “I love to laugh!” and they go up on to the ceiling? Those guys are the much louder voice inside my head; I’d much rather let them win.

You spoke briefly about your husband. I’m interested in how you collaborate with your husband, Dean Fleischer-Camp. How does it work for you?

I love working with my husband. I’ve never met anyone with a mind like his before. I truly believe he’s a creative genius. He’s also a lovely man! He’s just very emotionally intelligent. We met working together—he was my director before he was my boyfriend. He’s also very handsome. He’s very calm, I’m very frenetic. We’re a good match.

I have noticed that working together is both good and bad. When we make something like Marcel the Shell together, it’s wonderful and I’m totally creatively free. Marcel is almost all improvised. What happened there was, he created Marcel, how he looked, he animated it–and the entire story and narrative is made in the edits, which means it’s all Dean. We improvise, but Marcel is completely fueled by his ideas. I’m lucky for that because it’s a wonderful collaborative experience, but what’s unlucky for [Dean] is that I’m a more public person, and because of that, often times people assume I just did it and he helped me; that’s really unfair and can be rather cruel and hard for him. Sometimes that is at such a height that it almost feels like we’re gonna throw in the towel and not work together again, but we overcome it. It’s a give and take.

Also, I’ve become less obedient than when I first met him [Laughs]. I’m a pretty obedient performer; I like being directed. I will say that with my husband, sometimes I am a bit unprofessional and treat him as if he’s my husband rather than my director, like, “Wah, I have to go to the bathroom!” That’s the difference: Usually if we have time for one more shot, I’ll hold it. But, if it’s my husband, I’ll leave and go pee.

What point of your career process do you see yourself in right now?

Hmm…building? I would say that if I was a chicken, I would have hatched out of the egg, but still have a little bit of egg goop on me. I don’t look like a [grown] chicken yet, but I’m almost to a fluffy, yellow chick [and] a little bit dirty, still. In a few years I’ll be a fluffy chick, then a slightly larger fluffy chick hanging out with a lamb, but I don’t think I’ll be the chicken until I’m 60 years old. Then I’ll be, like, the chicken. Right now, I’m still hurting my little foot by stepping on a bit of shell. ♦