Molly Gordon

Working on 'The Bear' felt like coming home to this space that I've always longed to return to.

I'm a polka dot girl, yeah!

I think you can kind of beat a scene to the ground, and the last 10 takes, you're never going to use. Everyone's starting to overthink it by that point.

I think that's what theater camp is. It's a place where anyone can be themselves.

I think when we're just given the same type of thing over and over again, with the same types of people, no one wants to go out and see them. But if we continue to tell different kinds of stories, and stories that people can see in their own life, hopefully, people will come out.

Things have become so bright lit because it's like you have to be able to take in everything while you're also on your computer and on your Apple watch. But that's not how we should take in art.

I think what I realized is I want to do everything, but I love to always go back to comedy.

I grew up watching 'SNL' and going to The Groundlings' shows in L.A. So that's kind of where I more saw myself going. But then I got cast on this very dark show called 'Animal Kingdom,' which is the literal opposite.

I love comedy more than anything.

I remember watching him sing for the first time. All of the Platts, in the beginning of their vocal journey, have this amazing rasp. Ben sounded like how he sounds now, but as if he smoked 20 cigarettes a day. He was this raspy, gorgeous singer - and I fell for him fully!

The stakes at theater camp are insane. You have this three-week period in your life where everything feels like the biggest deal in the entire world. Are we going to be able to pull off this show? Can I hit an A minor? Can I learn this step?

It was so hard to get people to understand that kids could improvise. But I actually think they're much better than adults, because they're so free and not in their heads and not jaded.

To hear someone say that they don't deserve happiness, or deserve to give happiness, is a horrific statement.

I had a dress up box as a kid and I would always be putting together very strange outfits.

Some of the things that happened at theater camp, you would tell somebody and they would never believe. But if you're a theater person, you know, 'Oh, I've had the teacher who had us all pretend we're in a tsunami, or use your parents' divorce.'

I grew up doing musical theatre in L.A. at this sort of children's theatre/community that was kind of my escape from school and such a big part of my life and then when I started doing this professionally, I just ended up getting more work in film, which has been so wonderful.

I think that TV, film, and theatre feed each other in such a beautiful way.

I'm very lucky that the children's theater in Los Angeles that I grew up with was me and Ben Platt and Kathryn Gallagher and Beanie Feldstein. I grew up with all these people so I get to ask them what they do and how they stayed healthy and all those things. I'm very lucky that I got to watch my friends do it so I get to learn from them.

I feel very lucky to have grown up with such a smart, kind, incredible woman and director as my role model going through life. So, I feel lucky I get to work with her as my mom but also that I get to work with her as a director because I've always wanted to just have the work ethic that she has.

We really took inspiration from a 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' outline and how it sets very clear boundaries for exactly what's going to happen, but then all the stuff in between is play.

That is what sucks about improv a little bit, is that some of the funniest stuff actually can't be in the film because it doesn't make sense for the plot, but it's the funniest stuff ever.

I think those middle school times are the hardest to look back on, because they're deeply embarrassing, but they are the funniest.

I think that all those women that I look up to so much just ground their comedy in realism and don't try to make the funny.

You don't have to grow up too fast.

Things change, and you have to kind of throw away how you were planning on playing something and just go with what it is. And try all different things.

I kissed two guys who told me that they were gay the next day.

You always get do-overs in life, unless you do something really bad. It's okay to mess up. I wish I could go back in time and tell my high school and my middle school self not to sweat the small stuff.

The best comedy comes from having real moments, heart and all. You can't just have people making jokes over and over and over again.

The day before I graduated high school, I ran into a parked car. It happened in the daytime, completely sober. Their car was pretty much completely fine and my car was completely totaled.

I was a theater kid in high school, but I also went to parties. Usually in movies, there's the jock and the theater person. I got to exist as so many different people in high school.

I went to theater camp. I definitely wasn't cool. The camp that I went to had a hierarchy of the cool theater kids that are the leads and I was a chorus kid, so I wasn't as cool, but I loved it.

If you don't want to collaborate, you shouldn't work in film.

I need collaboration like I need water.

That's what was so inspiring about 'Shiva' - they just made a movie. They didn't wait around for people to give them permission.

I love creativity, where there just isn't one right answer.

My mom always says I slithered out of the womb - like a shimmy. I didn't come out crying. She was like, you were dancing.

Theater is such an absurd thing. It should be made fun of. But it's also produced some of the most beautiful things in the entire world and has made so many people feel safe. We can hold both things at the same time.

At sleepaway camp, I was never a lead.

I think sometimes you're around people that are upset to be at work, and we're lucky we get to make movies.

We just have to be brave in our life. Because who knows what will happen tomorrow?

I spent a lot of time doing my first few jobs in New York, just doing workshops of musicals. That's the best part of living in New York: when you're an out-of-work actor, that's the job that you have.

My parents were very supportive. They just said, if you're not going to go to college, you have to still be curious in your life. But I would go to a family gathering, and it'd be like, 'What are you doing? What do you do all day? If this acting thing doesn't work out, what are you going to do? How are you going to make any money?'

Sometimes I'll see something to the end of it because I want the story.

Theater people and normal people sometimes speak a completely different language, but if they come together, there's a lot of mutual love.

I'm a little more shy as I've gotten older.

When you do theater, you have to go right after and talk to people. When you do a movie, it's been months since you've shot it, and so you've been away from your performance. Theater is a beautiful thing and feeds your soul but it is way more vulnerable. So, I'd love to be able to do both.

I love 'Booksmart;' it's such a special movie.

I was not ready to be a teenager. I wanted to play dress up and go to theater camp with my friends. It took me a couple of years and then I was ready to have my high school party.

When I did 'Alice by Heart,' on one of the lifts, I farted a little bit and everyone heard it in the theater. Then I had to do two hours onstage without leaving, in a shame spiral.

An extreme perk of this job is I get to wear amazing creations of people, so I feel really lucky and they help me take more risks with my own fashion, too.