I wasn't allowed to watch regular television when I was growing up, only PBS, so I watched 'Masterpiece Theatre' and a lot of Jane Austen. I loved stories where the girl is attracted to a man and it looks like it's not going to work out.

When you're an actress, there are only a few times you can really get paid. One of them is doing a sequel. They can't fake you or hire another actor to play you.

The one thing that has helped sustain my career as an actress and a comedian is that people generally view me as fundamentally stupid.

I was like a waitress that got a job once in a while, and then Stifler's mom happened, and everything changed.

There's nobody in my family that's in performance or in the business in any way, so it was not something that was encouraged as a profession. It was more just encouraged as a personality trait.

I started working a Saturday job at this French cafe from when I was about 14. I lived two minutes away from the cafe and went there every morning. One day, the manager asked if I wanted to work there. I'd never worked before, so thought I'd give it a go.

I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician because, as a second job, my mother would clean up a pediatrician's office. So I was like, 'Oh, OK, baby doctor.' Until I got to college, and all the courses of science with the blood, guts and cadavers? I was like, 'Mm, no.'

Starting my business has been very hard work. I have received no help from any officials at all.