[stool clacks]
- You can keep in my inelegant entrance, I don't care.
- I'm not worried, my hands are usually this clammy.
What was the question?
- I can do this, I'm a professional.
[upbeat music]
- My name is Jameela Jamil.
I'm working on "The Good Place,"
and I've been acting for three years.
- My name is Ruby Rose, I am currently working on "Batwoman"
and I have been acting since,
well probably since I was a kid.
- Hi, I'm Natasha Lyonne.
I guess the show I'm currently working on is "Russian Doll"
'cause "Orange is the New Black" just finished,
so no more job there.
I've been acting since 1984,
so it's like seven years.
- Who is Jameela?
- Who is Ruby?
- Natasha is eh.
- Jameela is an activist, a writer, an actor,
and a serial erection killer.
- I produce, I direct, I act.
You know, I do dance.
Mostly I'm known for dance.
- I am Ruby.
Do people answer that like Ruby is fun-loving,
like is that how people,
like who are you?
- Describe your first headshot.
- Describe my first headshot.
- Have I ever had a headshot?
- I was so little.
And when you're a little person,
you make headshots, you have baseball caps and looks
'cause you're trying to get commercial work.
Some of them you have pearls,
you're a sophisticated four year old.
Some of them you have a little baseball cap backwards
you're like hey, I can play Curly Sue.
- My eyebrows were way too thin.
Yeah, I blame Mariah Carey,
Christina Aguilera and the whole 2000s era.
- I'm not a proper actress.
I'm still finding my feet in the industry,
but I will get one now, sorry everyone.
- On a scale of one to 10--
- How much does social media--
- Affect my career?
- 10.
- I would probably be the wrong person to ask.
There are networks and studios that look into numbers
and consider that.
- Social media has affected my
animal videos intake by 100%.
- Four or five.
I don't think it's the most important thing,
but I don't think it's the least important thing.
- I follow so many cat and dog accounts,
your mind would be blown.
- What's unique about working on "The Good Place?"
- What's unique about working on "Russian Doll?"
- What's unique about working on "Batwoman?"
Wow.
I mean, literally everything.
- It's like none of the horror stories
you've ever read about in any magazine.
- We have a writer's room with brilliant women.
- I'm trying to think of something that isn't unique
about working on "Batwoman."
- The idea that I get to go in there
and work with them and create from the ether
is the great joy of my life.
- Every single person on that set is kind and funny,
and that's because everyone is cherry picked
and grown in their career by Mike Schur.
- Especially for me, it's a very long series,
I've never done that.
I'm a superhero that has a bat suit, never done that.
I live in Canada now.
I don't have your president.
- What is my average day on set like?
- Different, every day.
- Delightful, because it always starts with Ted Danson.
- It's almost like being a session musician or something,
and hearing what the band is already playing and locking in.
- I drink a lot of coffee on night shoots,
and then have a lot of difficulty peeing in a bat suit.
That's kind of my daily struggle.
- I start learning my lines and practicing them
opposite a national treasure.
I am [bleep] after this job, aren't I?
I'll never find anything as fun as this again.
I'm retiring, I'm announcing it,
I'm retiring.
- What I want young women to know--
- When they're thinking about pursuing acting
is dare to be different.
Do not conform to what you think
you're supposed to look like.
- Get a briefcase, okay?
Get some sneakers.
Big, white, Reebok sneakers.
Put those heels in your briefcase
when you get on the subway.
- You'll meet a lot of amazing people.
You will work very hard.
- Want big hair, perm, tease, a large blazer.
The bigger the shoulder, the more you're a boss.
- You'll get a lot of nos and a lot of rejections,
but just don't give up.
- Do I have any vocal or--
- Pronunciation exercises?
- I do something that I think's
disturbing for people, if I'm honest.
It's important that before you're acting, you go like this.
[exhales sharply]
To get it out of your system.
- When I'm playing American people,
which I do a lot of in voiceover,
I chew gum 'cause it loosens my jaw
and helps me get that American twang.
- I have an amazing accent coach, Liz Himelstein
who's worked with everybody.
She has me walking around set
being like badaga-badaga-badaga.
Belly to the lips.
- Oh my god, this is vivid.
- If you ever see me on set and I'm like [exhales sharply]
it's because I'm feeling rocky in a scene.
I know how to fix this.
- My co-star Dougray also uses her
because he was like, badaga badaga badaga?
I was like belly to the lips.
- We should all be hah-ing on a more regular basis
together, freely out in the world.
Influences on my career?
Gosh, where to begin?
- Danny Wallace was a big influence on my career.
He wrote a book called "The Yes Man."
- I would say my mom, and Jenn Euston
were both really big influences on my career.
- That book was about a person
who was dissatisfied with their life
who decided to say yes to absolutely everything.
- The Film Forum as a whole was a large influence on me.
I spent so much time there
watching double, quadruple features, old movies,
and I think that that greatly influenced
my sense of how to break the rules.
- I decided to try that for myself,
and said yes to almost everything other than anal.
- What TV show influenced me the most?
- "Friends," which sounds ridiculous.
- It's a tie between "The Ninja Turtles"
and "Xena: Warrior Princess."
- "The Tracey Ullman Show" and "The Carol Burnett Show."
- Yep, they both taught me a lot about life.
- The person I related to most in "Friends,"
unfortunately for me, was Chandler
which is, it's sad.
On a scale of one to 10--
- How famous--
- Do I feel?
- Like a three?
Most people think I'm Priyanka Chopra.
Do you guys think I'm Priyanka Chopra?
- Ew!
Ew!
I'm not answering that.
- I always feel something like a garden gnome.
Something that's sort of a good luck in passing,
like hey, what's that gnome doing in the East Village?
- Skip that godawful question.
- Oh hey it's you, can I get a light?
It's like they know that I have a lighter on me, you know?
But they don't even want a photo.
- True or false--
- I feel like I am in control of my career.
- Uh true.
- True, I think I'm in control of my career.
- True, for the first time ever, true.
- The hardest emotion for me to express on camera.
- I don't know, I don't know
what the hardest emotion is for me to express on camera.
- Fear, because as an English person
my fear normally comes out in a very stoic way
where I'm just sort of stone faced and dead,
but obviously that does not work on camera for anyone.
- You know what I don't like doing on camera?
When they're like and do a fake laugh,
and the joke's not funny.
Good writing, you'll get a great laugh out of me.
Terrible joke, you'll get a terrible laugh.
- So having to feign fear, which is almost always
with a [bleep] green screen,
and you're like looking at a mop
pretending it's a monster.
- All things surrounding vulnerability or fear
or rage or sadness or loneliness.
Riding that wave is all sort of dependent,
sort of project to project
and environment to environment.
- True or false--
- The industry has changed me.
- False.
- True.
I haven't become an arsehole, but it has toughened me up.
- I would say true in positive ways.
Has it affected me in a negative way?
No, I think it's been good.
- What do you want?
- What do I want?
- What do I want, what does anybody want?
- To make people happy, I want to be happy,
and make my dogs happy.
- Proper gender equality.
I would like women to spend less time than they do
hating their appearances,
or even just thinking about their appearances.
- I'm coming from a point of view
that sort of presupposes that we're gonna win.
You know, that women are gonna triumph.
It makes me happy to think that even if it's delusional
which on a statistical basis it is,
you know it's 208 years until gender equality.
- I personally practice body neutrality
'cause I can't do positivity.
I just don't want to think about it.
I allow this to take up 1/10th of my headspace now.
- Do I love myself?
- Eh, yeah I think I've spent too much time hating myself.
Love is a strong word, but you know I get the idea.
It's not that bad, it's not that good.
I'm 100.
- As of 1 1/2 years ago, yes I do.
- Yeah, you have to love yourself.
You can't love other people until you love yourself.
I know it's cliche, but it's true.
- Before I hated myself, I bullied myself
more than anyone else ever could've,
but that's what we do.
We're taught to hate ourselves and then we ingest that
and it plants inside of us,
and then we grow it.
And so I had therapy, I started the I Weigh Movement,
and now I quite like myself.
- We're all unique, we're all made individually, different,
and cool and crazy and wild and quiet
and all the different spectrums
of all the different things we can be.
We get to be this one unique version of it
like how can you not love that?
[pleasant music]
- Hashtag social media rocks.