Sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, Rashida Jones is wonderful. We already knew that she’s intelligent, witty, and gosh-darn adorable, but the Parks and Recreation star has taken her infectious, friend-to-the-gays persona to new heights. In her recent interview with The Advocate (which we teased yesterday in Morning Brew), Rashida discusses her über-queer upbringing and playing a lesbian in her upcoming film, Our Idiot Brother. The daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton, Rashida recalls growing up around David Geffen, Sandy Gallin and other famous gays, leading her to have a “very positive association with gay men from an early age” and not realizing that it was a big deal in society until she learned of homophobia and discrimination. Feeling like an outsider as a biracial woman, Rashida gravitated toward gay people who shared some of her perspectives, and says, “I would never claim marginality … but I did have a hard time figuring out where I belonged when I went to college.” Not surprisingly, her social circle ended up being “very gay.”
The actress, who recently appeared in The Social Network, shared her process of getting into her Our Idiot Brother character, Cindy, the lesbian lawyer in a relationship with Zooey Deschanel: “I actually looked to my lesbian friends for approval of my portrayal of a lesbian. That’s crazy, of course, because there’s such a large gamut that lesbians run, but they gave me the thumbs up.” As for her butch look in the film, Rashida describes it as “super-ironic preppy,” and a product of costume designer Chris Peterson dressing her as a “boy he would be attracted to.” To complete her holistic transformation into Cindy, Rashida had to kiss her co-star girlfriend, Zooey. Cutely enough, it was her first girl kiss, on and off-screen, and she gushes, “I was like, ‘Oh, my god, girls are so pretty and soft. No stubble burn! What am I doing with guys?'” True, she’s straight, and hasn’t “dipped back since,” but she’s still “very appreciative of the experience.” This wasn’t her first lesbian role, as she played a lesbian in indie film East of A, and a feminist in If These Walls Could Talk 2, of which she says, “So I was close to lesbians. I was lesbian-adjacent.” Another memorable time where she was lesbian-adjacent? Her Funny or Die PSAs. She says, “I basically rolled around in bed with Natalie Portman and some pussies. I’m sorry, but that’s what was happening.” I leave you with a few wise words from Ms. Jones: “Celebrities or not, people should speak out and say what’s unfair. The fight for marriage equality shouldn’t be some secret, hidden agenda; it’s something everyone should know about.”
I know who I’m putting on my AE Hot 100 List. (Hint: it’s not Newt Gingrich, although he looks fabulous in glitter.)
