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Patricia Arquette has an interview with People Magazine to promote her new CBS show, CSI: Cyber. The show premiered last night and is getting middling reviews. I’m not a fan of true crime shows or any of the CSIs but it’s got James Van Der Beek and Fat Neil from Community (that’s what they called him) in it. It looks like a fun ensemble cast in the same vein as NCIS. I’ve seen the first 10 minutes of the show and Patricia plays it very straight and even, she has that monotone voice that makes it sound like she’s either in control or incredibly bored.

To People, Patricia gave some decent quotes about body image and about working in Hollywood. She wasn’t controversial at all like when she talked feminism backstage at the Oscars. She made some good points:

On body image
When I was a teenager, someone told me, ‘If you fix your teeth, you could be in Playboy.’ I said ‘Why would I want to be in Playboy?’ I didn’t want to look perfect. I didn’t want to have to be some girl in a magazine. I didn’t want to have to change myself to be attractive.

I’ve had so many of these conversations in my life … what I look like on film, what I don’t look like on film. What are we supposed to look like? Men are not having these conversations.

It’s like we’re trapped in wet wool or something. I just want to be free of it so we can move to the next level as equals. Not that I don’t love being a woman, not that I don’t love the differences between men and women. I just mean, as an actor – why is this a conversation? Why is aging a conversation? It’s a one-sided conversation because it’s only ever had by women.

On how she relates to her Boyhood character
When you’re a kid you think, ‘I can’t wait to have my own independence, to have my own apartment, but it can be really rough being an adult, and sometimes it just feels relentless.

She’s tried to shelter her kids Enzo, 26, and Harlow, 12, from the industry
I don’t watch my movies at home, I don’t talk about my work with my kids, there’s not any posters of myself up on the wall.

[From People Magazine, online and print edition, March 16, 2015]

On People’s website, Arquette has some additional quotes about keeping kids safe online. She sounds a little out of touch, and I can tell that this show is going to sensationalize the Internet to an unrealistic degree. That’s what these shows do though. Arquette said “I have this line in one of the episodes where I say, ‘No adult would ever let their child go outside and play with a 45-year-old stranger, but in these online gaming worlds they’re doing it every day.’ It’s the truth.” Yes it’s the truth, but those two situations are not equivocal in any way, and if you teach your child to be careful and anonymous online it’s a much different thing.

About Arquette’s teeth, I honestly barely noticed them. She reminds me a little of Kirsten Dunst in that way. Dunst has said that she loves her “snaggle fangs” (her words) and that she’s not going to change them. Arquette places it in the larger context of people nitpicking women for minor perceived flaws and for aging. As long as she’s not calling out other groups for not supporting feminist causes, I agree with her.

Update: After this story was published, I found an interview that Arquette did with Buzzfeed in which she attempted to clarify her backstage Oscar comments. It’s a very extensive interview. Buzzfeed also asked her about the character she played on Medium, Allison Dubois, getting wasted and making a fool of herself on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Arquette defended her somewhat, and said that Dubois didn’t “have very much experience on camera. And it’s never a great idea to be drunk on camera.” As for what she said backstage at the Oscars, Arquette said that was “very misconstrued.” Here’s how she addressed it:

What I meant was the most adversely affected are women of color, and every single lesbian and transgender woman. So what I was saying is all of these bases should rally around women. I don’t know why everybody just accepts that women should take this; that women should have to be paid less for the exact same job. I’m not talking about charity. I’m talking about working women doing the exact same job. I mean, I’m sorry people took it that way. We have these incredible activists in all of these areas who have made and fought for significant change. Why don’t they come forward and support women? Half of their base is women — why aren’t they fighting for that?

[From Buzzfeed]

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View image | gettyimages.com

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photo credit: Getty Images