Quotes from Betty Gilpin

Female friendship... I think you have friendships that come and go, and then there are ones that the girl becomes a part of your bones.

Both of my parents are actors, so I grew up backstage with them. I would see some of their shows 30, 40, 50 times. I would have it all memorized. I loved it.

If I'm brought the wrong order at a restaurant, I don't send it back, because I don't want the waiter to get mad at me.

In previous roles, I have thought of my body as 'Betty's body,' and I try not to eat too many dinner rolls - please don't fire me! I'll make crazy choices from the neck up, but from the neck down, it's just me trying to suck it in. And in 'GLOW,' my whole body was required to do a function and not just to look as good as possible in a costume.

Growing up, I was a self-loathing Igor who carried the queen's books. My job was to be the sarcastic sherpa, quietly providing the farce and adoration, then becoming part of the wall when cued.

The rule was I had to go to college, and I couldn't even go to theater camp.

My mom used to play a lot of super character-y parts... so I was sort of raised to be a clown.

I ate cucumbers and saltines - not because I wanted to look a certain way, but because I was so sad my appetite disappeared.

I started doing plays in New York while I was at Fordham, but I did graduate by the skin of my teeth.

I wasn't allowed to audition for anything professionally until I was - I guess I cheated a little bit and started when I was in college, but I graduated! Barely.

'GLOW' is the first time I feel like I've been able to have a theatrical experience on the small screen: to really be able to marry the two. And I love it.

Getting to work with Edie Falco and watching her be a quiet presence - but a very powerful presence - and so brilliant and free? That was the first person I saw where I was like, 'I want to emulate that.'

Being an actor, I've thought about being in the male gaze.

When I read what 'GLOW' was about, it just felt like something where I could make as many faces as I wanted, and it would totally make sense!

To get health insurance, you give up your dignity - that's what I thought being an actor was. So when 'GLOW' came along, I was shaking reading it because I hadn't really allowed myself to dream of a show like this.

I think that it's our job to sort of band together and say, 'OK, what are the ways the male gaze has seeped into your brain and is affecting the way you treat yourself? Let's work together to eliminate that.'

With all the stuff that's going on in the world - after I watch the news, read the news, and listen to my podcasts, at the end of the day, am I really going to watch an episode of murder and time travel?

'GLOW' was the first time that, from head to toe, I was asked to use my body in a functional, powerful way as an actor - and that felt amazing.

I went to theater school where there is a lot of holding each other's faces and crying, and a lot of kid gloves.

I'm on a billboard in Times Square, but my bathroom is still dirty, and I have toothpaste on my face.

I spent a lot of time in college studying theater of the absurd and Beckett and Genet, and then I spent a lot of time after that at 'Gossip Girl' auditions, thinking, 'Wow, I really wasted my money.'

I went to the Women's March in D.C. on January 21, and I, looking around, was thinking, Wow, something that bonds all of us is that we've been silent-screaming in our bathrooms, alone, in between sarcastic lunches.

I was scared to film 'GLOW' for many reasons. As an actor, as a wrestler. It was just a very scary and intimidating experience.

Wrestling was the first time I thought, 'My leg is the thing that functions in this way to do this move, to get from A to B.' Instead of, like, 'My body's purpose is to suck it in so the male showrunner thinks it's attractive.'