JG: Having your period. They used cloths that they would just rinse out. All the women living in the village would be on the same cycle because there was no birth control. The animals must have been going crazy. Nobody thinks about this stuff.
PB: What are your real-life fears?
JG: My recurring nightmare is that I'm sleeping naked backstage under a comforter. It's my cue and I can't wake myself up, so I have to decide, do I go on stage naked or should I go on stage wrapped up in the comforter? I don't know. I have a therapist, but I keep forgetting to ask him about it.
PB: In next year's movie The Moguls, starring Jeff Bridges and Joe Pantoliano, is it true that you make an amateur porn video?
JG: Yes, I play a young mattress saleswoman/wannabe lesbian porn star.
PB: Did you have to watch adult films for research?
JG: Have to? I didn't have to do a lot of research. That's all I'm gonna say about that, other than it was one of the most fun three days of work I've had in my life.
PB: You've made love on-screen with some of Hollywood's biggest stars. Who was the most memorable?
JG: George Clooney was really shocking to me because when I got that part in Three Kings, I was living in an unfurnished studio apartment in a nasty neighborhood in L.A., and then I blink and I'm in Arizona rehearsing a love scene with George Clooney. But I never got to kiss him in the scene. I did get to smooch Nicolas Cage in Adaptation.
PB: Do you have a real-life boyfriend?
JG: Yes, he does reality television. He's done a bunch of reality TV pilots, and he wrote the Totally Busted show for Playboy TV.
PB: What do you look for in a guy?
JG: Number one is sense of humor. I couldn't be with anyone who didn't make me laugh so hard I cried. And I need it on a daily basis.
PB: What do you do when you're not acting?
JG: I knit obsessively. I was hoping it would help me quit smoking cigarettes. I quit for two years once.... That was encouraging. I read a lot and I've become obsessed with Law & Order, which I can watch while I'm knitting.
PB: Critics have compared you to Gwyneth Paltrow and Meryl Streep. Can you live with those comparisons?
JG: I'm very surprised because I don't feel like I do the things they do. But, if people think of me as a chameleon, then I really am truly doing my job and that's the best compliment I could get.

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photo: Dan Steinberg