At 34, Janeane Garofalo if the unofficial poster child of the New Girl Order. In the BUST -- ionnaires we included in our last issue, her name came up over and over again in response to the question, "Which woman would you most like to see profiled in a future issue of BUST?" Not only that, but most of you even spelled her name right. Janeane's our kind of gal because she reminds us of our best friends, our sisters, ourselves. And when we heard that she'd agreed to be out cover girl for the Body Issue, we did a Snoopy dance to end all Snoopy dances.

     You most likely already know plenty about Janeane -- about her early days on the comedy -- club circuit, about her short -- lived romance and long lasting friendship with Ben Stiller, about her blossoming film career that stretches from Reality Bites to Mystery Men. What you may not know, however, is that not only is the divine Ms. G. as fierce, as funny, and as feminist as you'd expect, she is also incredibly generous. Case in point: only after she'd answered every single question that I posed to her for an hour and a half did she tell me that she'd had to pee the entire time. I'm telling you, the girl has grace.

BUST -- I want to ask you about something. I know you were very uncomfortable about the photo shoot that we did for the cover...

Janeane Garofalo -- I just don't like having my picture taken. That kind of focus embarrasses me. I don't like posing and conjuring attitude for the camera.

B -- Does it feel different when you're in front of the movie camera?

JG -- Yes, because you're actually speaking and talking and doing something and it's in the context of doing a scene, whereas in a photo shoot, all you're doing is staring at a piece of equipment. And I don't pose seductively, because first of all, it wouldn't work, and second of all, I don't like that. I don't appreciate when I see photos of other actors and performers in magazines in the seductive poses. Like if you see Matthew McConaughey or Nicole Kidman looking at the camera with a very seductive look on their face, or wearing next to nothing, I question what it has to do with their work. Nine out of ten actors go that route every fucking time they get their picture taken. What is gained by causing the 14-24 year -- old male demographic to want to masturbate to your photo in the bathroom?

B -- Especially in the case of Matthew McConaughey.

JG -- I've actually met Matt McConaughey; he's a nice enough guy. I'm sure Nicole Kidman is very nice. In any case, I think she's a great actor. I really do. (But) I was talking about Eyes Wide Shut with a reporter from the New York Times recently, and I said that it gave me pause about the underwear that she was wearing in the trailer. They keep touting that that's what you're gonna see; they're utilizing her body and underwear to get you in to go see Kubrick's film, which is a slap in the face to Kubrick's oeuvre. And like I said, I think she's a great actor, but I don't know why she would allow it to happen. That scene I'm sure could just as easily be done in a terry cloth robe or sweatpants. And I'm sure if she had said to the producers or Kubrick, "You know, I really would like to wear pajama bottoms," they would have said, "Fine." But I'm sure she was just as down with that idea, and I don't understand why that happens all the time. As far as I'm concerned, with a photo shoot, all I want to do is to show up. No hair, no makeup, im my own clothes, take the picture, good-bye.

B -- Have you had bad photo shoot experiences?

JG -- No, not bad, but not until recently am I allowed to do that: no hair, no makeup, my clothes. In the old days when I would have photo shoots, I couldn't do it, I couldn't get away with it. They made me wear makeup, they made me wear the clothes they picked for me, they made me blow-dry my hair. Which now they don't make me do, although there are some magazines that say, "Either she does it our way or she doesn't do it," and I'm like, "Good, good, I didn't want to do it anyway."

B -- But when these other magazines have people there to do hair and makeup and everything, don't you ever find it secretly a little bit fun?

JG -- It depends on my mood. I don't like having my face touched, as a rule. I don't mind putting my own makeup on my face -- like I have to admit, I never leave the house without eyebrow pencil. Never. And I haven't since 1982. Even though I will forego anything and everything else, I will not not have eyebrow pencil. Because I have light brown eyebrows and light brown hair -- I've been dyeing my hair black since '82 as well -- I literally look like a fetus if I don't have eyebrows. It looks like a big bulbous fat face with no definition, so I always do eyebrow pencil and dye my hair black, but that's my thing, that's for me, that's not to attract strangers or anything (laughs).

B -- So since we're talking about that sort of stuff, can you tell me a but about your tattoos?

JG -- I have 8 or 9 tattoos, which I started getting at the age of 18. The last one I got was this one on my finger. It's a "C" for choice. It's not choice, like, pro-choice, even though that's fine. I had read a book by Dr. Victor Frankel called Man's Search for Meaning, the basic thrust thing that everything you do in your life is a choice, from the way you choose to handle an altercation over a counter at a convenience store, to life's big decisions, but you should always think of it as your second chance to do it right. So I had that in my head, and now I put this on my finger. Now, whether that has informed my life very much or not remains to be seen.

B -- You got your first one when you were 18?

JG -- I got my first one when I was 18, on my forearm. It said, "Think."

B -- Did you tell your parents?

JG -- They didn't know about it for a long time, but when they found out they were beside themselves. My mom's dead now, but before she died -- I was about 23-24 when she died -- she said, "If you get another tattoo, I'm gonna punch you in the face!" And I went on to get a few more after that.

B -- What are some of the things you like best about your body?

JG -- I would say the only thing I like is being short. I don't know why. Short people have always appealed to me. Although I've got to say that as a rule, the men I'm sexually attracted to are very tall. But, just people in general, I find lower to the ground more appealing. I'm used to short people. I'm 5'1", my sister's 4'11", my brother's 5'6", mom 5'2", father 5'7", so I'm very comfortable around dwarves, and all my extended family is very tiny and most of my friends have been on the very short side. But I mean, my current boyfriend is 6'4". And that's one of the things that attracted me when I saw him; it was the height. And my boyfriend before him was about 6'4".

B -- So, you have a boyfriend now!

JG -- Yes I do. The last time I was interviewed by BUST I had a boyfriend too, oddly enough, who is now still one of my closest friends.

B -- Is it good?

JG -- Very good.

B -- Is he a comedian?

JG -- He's an actor, and we have a normal, healthy relationship. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that we're on different coasts a lot of the time (laughs) -- that's probably very helpful.

B -- You, have a very normal, healthy relationship?

JG -- Yes, oddly enough. And it's mostly thanks to him, because he works very hard at that kind of thing in his life. He's been in therapy for a number of years because of various personal reasons, and he applies all he's learned to our relationship. It's been really helpful to me -- the maturity and the pace at which he takes things.

B -- In Feel This Book, you and Ben make fun of most of that self-help stuff. Do you have any kind of a soft spot for those things?

JG -- No. As far as my boyfriend, is concerned, because I love him, and I know it's coming from the right place, I'm all for it. That's as far as I go. I mean, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, Course in Miracles, all that stuff, it doesn't speak to me.

B -- So back to the body...are you sort of a Sporty Spice? Do you do sports or work out?

JG -- No, I just wear track pants a lot (laughs). No, I don't like sports, I don't watch sports. I have been known to go running in my day, but I haven't done that in a long time. I was thinking of joining Crunch again, because I'm 34 years old and I cannot climb a flight of stairs without dying, because I smoke about two packs of cigarettes a day. My cardiovascular system is like that of a very old person. I don't care about the physical aspect of it, or the fat-burning aspect of it, but I was really surprised the other day when I was in my building and the elevator was out so I had to take the stairs and I was going to pass out and I thought, "This is ridiculous. I'm not that old." So I thought maybe I ought to join Crunch and go to the gym.

B -- Did you ever have a time in your life when you actually did stuff like that regularly?

JG -- Yes. I used to go to the gym with Margaret Cho quite a bit, actually, back in the day, but that was borne out of the fact that I was living in L.A., unemployed, and literally had nothing but time on my hands. The only time I would work would be the occasional stand-up gig, and then sometimes I did some temp work, but I very depressingly had nothing to do. Nothing. And there was a 24-hour gym near my home, which was very cheap to join. So after Letterman I would go there, sometimes with Margaret Cho, sometimes with Colin Quinn, and it was just like a lifesaver. I would get on my treadmill and just walk, walk, walk, and occasionally lift something. I did the same thing when I lived in Houston, when my mother was dying. I had nothing to do when I wasn't helping my mom or working in the movie theatre tearing tickets, and I would go and just get on the treadmill. It's actually more meditative than it is anything, because I can't stand exercise, really. But I think I'm gonna join Crunch again and just get on the treadmill again, put my walkman on and just do that. Because it kind of helps me out mentally, too.

B -- I know in the past you talked a lot about fat, and how irritating the attitude about it is in Hollywood, but then I heard that when you were at the photo shoot, you were like, "Ugh! I'm so sick of talking about fat and I don't want to talk about it anymore!"

JG -- It has just gotten to the point where I've never done an interview where it hasn't come up, which makes me think, am I a freak of nature? Am I not seeing myself correctly? That people are always saying, "Well, you're not the typical Hollywood actress," or, "How is it, working in the Hollywood milieu?" as if I'm this huge behemoth or something. Actually, the most strange thing to me is that because I eat carbohydrates and sugar I am considered, like, Francis Farmer -- like this crazy rebel insurgent. That is a sad commentary on Hollywood.

B -- Well, the reason we're interested in what you have to say about the body is because you've said some very interesting things about it in the press in the past. You've talked about how you feel about models, and how strange it is for you that people tell you stuff in Hollywood, like tell you to loose weight.

JG -- Okay, well, coming from that perspective, I don't mind talking about it. And also, I hope people understand I don't dislike models -- I just dislike the worship of same. And I dislike things like the Nicole-Kidman-in-her-underwear hard sell for a film, I dislike in movies like American Pie, where the foreign exchange student winds up naked. Just, you know, the business as usual is females in some way winding up underdressed, and underwritten for in their dialogue.

     Unfortunately, we woman in the industry keep doing it. I've said it a million times, but the personal is political. Every time you get on that Stairmaster, every time you choose not to wear a bra, every time you don't put sugar in your coffee, every time you take a Pilates class, every time you pose on the cover of Premiere in your underwear, you are saying to the Hollywood status quo, "Yes, this is okay. The patriarchy has made the rules, and it's okay by me. I'm gonna keep not eating carbs, I'm gonna keep wearing very short skirts, and I'm gonna keep lying about my age, to fit into rules that I had nothing to do with, and I'm going to keep perpetuating this." There's a reason that young boys have no respect for girls. Because young boys, and young girls, have been fed woman-as-object, woman-as-toy. Sports Illustrated-issue, hostess-on-gameshow, model-as-mannequin, beer-girl-holding-beer-on-poster-in-local-convenience-store, so when they see girls, all they see is tits and ass. I am complicit in this: I have been on MTV, I am part of the problem. All of these things form a chain of disrespect towards women. And, unfortunately, why should men think that there's something wrong with it? The women are doing it.

B -- Well, I guess there are two solutions for that. One is to cover everything up and not play any of that stuff up, but there's also been a lot of talk lately about reclaiming some of these things. Because I always think, making yourself sexy is not, in and of itself, oppressive. Like, if you look at the gay male subculture -- those men will make themselves real sexy for each other, and it doesn't mean they are seen only as "things."

JG -- No, but I've spoken to a number of gay men who do not buy into that aesthetic, and they find it just as appalling as the way I find it for women. And you're still talking about men who are the patriarchy, in a way, and they made the rules. It doesn't matter if it's a gay male subculture. Why do you think the lesbian subculture is looking so very different? They are letting it all hang out, like the Willendorf Venus, you know? It's like "Fuck you!" and it's beautiful.

B -- I guess I hope that someday in the future, men and women will be able to choose to be tops or bottoms regardless of their sex, and then maybe dressing sexy will no longer be seen as oppressive.

JG -- See, I think all these theories -- like "reclaiming," and "power," and this, that and the other -- I would think that these are all fine things. But were not dealing with an enlightened society that can see beyond the layers of the girl posing nude on the Vanity Fair cover. Reclaiming her sexuality? That's bullshit. Bullshit. Because if it was true, and we're talking about reclaiming our sexuality, we'd have Chastity Bono nude on Vanity Fair. Why don't we have Kathy Bates nude on Vanity Fair? Why Charlize Theron? Why Gretchen Mol? It's not about reclaiming your sexuality.

B -- What so you think about Madonna then?

JG -- I think Madonna in interviews is bright and funny and intelligent, but the route that she chooses to make her statements doesn't appeal to me, and never has.

B -- So who are some of your female heroes?

JG -- Natalie Merchant, Fran Lebowitz, Sandra Bernhard, Hilary Clinton, Linda Greenlawn, and various and sundry women who I'm not aware of, who work at Doctors Without Borders, all these other wonderful people that I don't know what their names are.

B -- I read that there was a time that you did lose all this weight to try and get more movie roles, and I'm wondering, did losing it make you feel different about yourself?

JG -- It made me feel worse. Because I wasn't doing it for me. If I had done it so me, that would be fine, and I probably would have kept it off, although it took a lot of work to lose it.

B -- Yeah, how the fuck did you do it?

JG -- I starved myself, basically. For six weeks, I ate bananas, and when I was hungry, I would do shots of tequila or vodka -- the taste of it just made me totally not hungry, and plus I got a buzz off of it. So I'd eat bananas, drink a lot of water, drink a lot of coffee, and then do shots at night if I was hungry. I felt awful. I lost about 30 pounds. I guess I weighed about 98 pounds or something. I got a bunch of auditions I would have never gotten.

B -- Really? How does that happen? Does a press release go out saying, "Janeane Garofalo Loses Weight," or something?

JG -- It's bizarre in that, just coincidentally, you've got auditions for something anyway, and your showing up looking completely different and word does get around. It just does. I'd go in for one part and they'd say, "Oh, read this one" -- as if you're now more talented! It sounds like a made-up story, but for about three movies in a row, when I went in at 98 pounds to read for the supporting role, they said, "Well, why don't you read this?" Which would never have happened before, because it wouldn't be possible for a 130-pound woman to play the leading role. And actually, I don't really care if I play the lead unless it's like a Scorcese film or something and I wanted the lead. But at the same time, you know, to me, to be just another thin actress is just so boring.

B -- In one interview, you were talking about how every guy who gets involved with you is going to have to deal with you saying, "Why am I so fat?" every five seconds.

JG -- Yeah, I don't do that anymore.

B -- So, are you getting more comfortable in your body as you age?

JG -- Well, I can't honestly say that I love having sex with my boyfriend in broad daylight, but I don't say that anymore.

B -- You know, they also say that women hit their sexual peak at 35. do you feel like you're getting close to yours?

JG -- I am so much more interested in having sex now than I ever was. I'm always initiating sex. It's embarrassing. It's very embarrassing. And in my early 20's, I could live without it. I didn't care.

B -- What stuff do you think is changing, then, for you?

JG -- Well, the sexual I this is purely biology. I don't know where that's coming from. It's just, if I could be having sex every night now, I would. Whereas up until the age of 32, I could have gone months and it never affected me. And now I always wanna have sex. I think it's pure, straight-up biology.

B -- We also interviewed Amy Poehler for this issue...

JG -- (gasps) Oh! My idol!

B -- ...and she was talking about how you really have to play down your looks to be taken seriously as a comedienne.

JG -- Right, that goes into woman-as-toy. But I think what she's talking about -- and it annoys me too -- is, like, if you go see an improv and there's females in the troupe and they'll come out to do their improves in, you know, the belly shirt and the low-low hip huggers and you say to yourself, "Now, why? Why'd you make that choice? I don't believe if you're telling me just comfortable, because it's very visual and you know the way people are gonna react." Like in the movie There's Something About Mary, I couldn't have been the only other one that noticed that Cameron Diaz never wore a bra in that movie. I just couldn't be the only one. I refuse to believe that. (Laughs) That was a conscious choice.

B -- So did you feel, when you were first starting out, that you had to play down your looks?

JG -- No. I've never had to play down my looks because I've never had looks that would incite anyone to, you know, go, "Yeah!" I've never been that kind of person. When people tell someone they're beautiful, I don't see that as a compliment. Like, "You look very pretty today." When someone says that to me, I say "Thank you," but I don't really care. Looking great to me is not a goal; it's not a noble pursuit. It's not about playing down my looks, but if you visually enhance it, you are sort of asking people not to hear you, because of the society we live in, right or wrong.

B -- Well, what do you think it will take to make all that stuff change?

JG -- Nothing. It's never gonna change, because nobody's ever gonna change it. Men are not gonna stop being visually motivated. Moviemakers, magazine publishers, television makers, clothing designers, are never going to stop exploiting the female form. Females, "attractive" females, are never going to stop enjoying being titillating and seductive. And, like I said, I don't buy the "reclaiming the power" thing, 'cause we've got Bosnian rape camps, and the women being cast out of their families because they've shamed the family, and Chinese female infanticide, female circumcision that is now coming into our country with immigration, females still being rescued from a home in the Bronx from being a sex slave.

B -- But what about the girls who say, "I dress like this because I get pleasure from being looked at?"

JG -- But that's the chicken-or-the-egg question. Is that nature or nurture? Did you get pleasure from that organically, from the Goddess Mother?

B -- Well, for me I think I get pleasure from it because I'm a bottom. I mean, there are women I know who have never been comfortable with the girly stuff, and then I know that I always have.

JG -- I guess it's different because I guess I'm not a bottom. In fact, I had huge boobs at a very young age, and I'm very short so it was very noticeable. It was hell. I didn't ever enjoy guys yelling things out of cars. That was the most unwelcome attention I think anyone's ever given me, and all it caused me to do was, you know, wear hooded sweatshirts all the time, 'cause I never felt it was a gift or a compliment. It never appealed to me. Of course, I love the man in my life to find me beautiful on the inside and the outside, but just for us, privately. I don't need the world to do it, I don't need other men to do it, I don't need it.

B -- So you think what everyone needs to do right now is to sort of play it down, wear muumuus?

JG -- Yeah, but it never would. I mean, to even say that just sounds like I'm living in some fucking dream world, and it makes me sound like I'm the bitter fat girl.

B -- Well, you're entitled to have your own utopian vision.

JG -- Yeah, that would be my utopian vision. Mao Tse-tung uniforms, and we all had to wear that, and everybody presented their work. "This is my work, there are my words." Sure. And you would say, "Madonna is so hot, I hear she reads three books a week! Fucking awesome!" Or, "I hear Mel Gibson works with Doctors Without Borders!" I mean, look at the John Kennedy, Jr. thing. Tell me what's that about. I mean, I myself did really feel awful about that.

B -- Yeah, I saw you as a commentator on CNN about the death.

JG -- On, Jesus! I don't know him. I've never met him. But what kills me is some of the implications of some the journalists, who should be ashamed of themselves. It's like, "Carolyn Besette, Lauren Besette ... so beautiful, what a tragedy." Or, "John Kennedy, Jr. -- the only one who didn't have the horse-y teeth." So what they're saying is, "Boy, it's a shame when pretty people die, isn't it?" But unfortunately, that's what a lot of our culture boils down to. Like Madonna, I don't believe her. I don't believe when she says certain things. I mean, I think your strength comes from not showing your tits. That's the power. Succeeding in pop culture, and in the commercial entertainment, by never showing your navel. That, to me, would be reclaiming your power.

B -- How do you feel about the idea that a nation of alterna-girls considers you their hero?

JG -- If that's true, I'm flattered by it. I can't imagine a nation of anything about me, 'cause I feel like I'm just so moderately known, you know, hardly at all. If anything, I feel like I'm just insufferable and annoying to people, and the more exposure I get, the more annoying I become to people.

B -- Do you ever think of yourself as a character? Have you been forced to think of yourself as a "Janeane Garofalo" kind of part or something?

JG -- Well, I've only been confronted with it when I'll see in a script, "Janeane Garofalo-type" in parenthesis, that I'm actually considered an archetype.

B -- What do you think they mean when they say that?

JG -- Non-traditional, best-friend, supporting role, hard-edged New Yorker. Just another lazy caricature. But usually, when I see it in a breakdown for a TV show -- because my manager will save it because we think it's funny, she'll say, "Check this out," and there will be like five scripts that say "Janeane Garofalo-type" -- What they're saying is: not the ingènue lead. It's the wry best friend that makes sarcastic comments.

B -- I'd like to ask you what you think of a few pop-culture phenomena. Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

JG -- Never seen it.

B -- Ally McBeal?

JG -- I think Calista Flockhart is a great actress, but I don't know that I find the length of her skirts particularly empowering to women. I remember seeing in the pilot a scene where she was fantasizing about her boobs growing, and again, I think that's a man's idea of what woman do, so to me that's not like a woman's show. It's still David E. Kelley's game.

B -- Pamela Anderson Lee?

JG -- It's so hard to have an opinion on her because she does so genuinely seen like one of the nicest people, and she does generally seem like a good mom, but she doesn't strike me as an intellectual giant, because I think intellectualism tends to fly in the face of breast implants that size, before she got them changed, you know? (Laughs) But I could be wrong about that. She might kick my butt in the SAT's, I don't know.

B -- Is your life pretty glamorous at this point?

JG -- I guess that glamorous part of my life is that, when I'm in L.A., I live in hotels. I get facials now, which I never did before, and sometimes I'll get a pedicure just so someone will touch my feet. I loved having my feet rubbed.

B -- Do you ever get to spend time alone?

JG -- I don't do much of anything. My life is very boring. Last night, I went to the 10th Street Lounge, and smoked a lot of cigarettes, tonight, I have no plans. I have been privy to some pretty glamorous things, I guess -- I've been to some Hollywood parties in huge beautiful homes where the "beautiful people" are, but I don't spend a lot of money on myself or the things that I have or the clothes that I wear. I spend very little money, actually. My facials do cost me a lot of money. I don't know why, but I'm willing to go on blind faith that it's worth that much money. I have spent a lot of money on gifts for other people. I've spent a lot of money on the dogs. The camp that they are at now was very expensive.

B -- Do you call there to see how they are doing?

JG -- Yes, I do. I've called twice and she's called me twice, and I've talked to the dogs on the phone. So in some ways, yes, I drop a lot of cash on things that the average person probably couldn't. Like this camp. But it's worth it to me, to have this facility.

B -- So, you've probably met everyone at this point that you've ever wanted to meet.

JG -- Yes. Except Hilary Clinton. I haven't met Hilary Clinton. But I've met Sandra Bernhard, Fran Lebowitz, Albert Brooks, Harry Shearer, Jim Carey...

B -- Do you ever just pinch yourself and think, "I am so lucky, this is so fucking great!"?

JG -- I definitely say, "I can't believe I actually get to do for a living what was my choice." Because I think only 0.5% of the population gets to say that. And again, I think it is choices that you make that have led you to be able to do what you want, but also a lot of luck, a lot of luck. I have my parents to thank for them fronting me the rent when I just couldn't do it, and saying, "Take your time." Basically, I have my parents to thank 100% for me doing this for a living. So, yeah, I'm very lucky.

B -- Well, Janeane, thank you very much.

JG -- Thank you!