All the Women in My Brain: And Other Concerns

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I didn't want it to be a typical actor memoir because, A, there are so many billion actresses nowadays that I don't expect anyone to know who I am or care. It was 2020, and like pretty much everyone else on planet Earth, the actress Betty Gilpin was having a strange year: Her first leading role in a movie, Craig Zobel’s “The Hunt,” had already stirred a manic level of controversy and drawn the ire of President Trump, before it came out on March 13. Where even though the role is an abused gas station attendant in a town with no vegetables, you have to look like you’ve never not been to the gym and have only known greens. A bow-tied beast trotted behind with the rings, harrumphing in boredom at the bottom of my dress throughout the ceremony.

As a dear friend said after reading this book, it’s “either a masterpiece, or it’s…completely…” and then she glazed over into a haunted stare. Prior to the book, she had well-received essays published in Lena Dunham’s newsletter Lenny Letter and Glamour magazine (that one, true to form, was titled “What It’s Like to Have Pea-Sized Confidence With Watermelon-Sized Boobs”).

Her next two parts are as an AI-battling nun in Damon Lindelof’s new sci-fi show Mrs Davis, and as Lina, the mother-of-two embarking on a passionate affair in the TV adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s bestseller Three Women. Soon you’ll barely hear it, and treating your identity like a Swiss Army knife of traits to perform and muffle will be as easy as lying to yourself. I dished out traumatic stories like they were Bagel Bites I brought to throw at a zoo lion to please it.

That challenge is best met in her descriptions of the ludicrous, and often grotesquely exploitative, environment of the entertainment industry, which she skewers with an insider’s wisdom. And for anyone who can laugh along at the tear-jerking insincerity of some animal biographies, the author brings us along on a heart-felt journey of true love for her dog, Babe. If you were to hire a crane operator, would you hold interviews at a Blue Bottle to see which construction worker had the sexiest anecdote about their quote tattoo?

The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

I think that the game has changed where there are a million shows, a million actors, and I didn't want to alienate anyone by thinking, 'I haven't seen this so I'm not going to relate to the book. Being an actress and a woman now, it feels like we are trying to sell the merch of a feminist victory before having the victory itself. This is towards the end of my book, and I am talking about the guy who I dated, fell in love with, and later married.Tug at your sleeves in self-hate for the first scene, then scratch an itch on your back in the second so the sweater rides up, accidentally showing the spoils of the spin class you sobbed through.