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To me, I've never understood why there is any question about are women as funny as men.

Women do come up to me after a show, but it's usually to say, 'Yhank you for making us laugh,' and all that.

Women have been funny for years.

I think there have always been funny women, from Carol Burnett to Joan Rivers. When the audience sees a woman, they innately know she's worked twice as hard to get there, she's had to prove that she can be the leader, first, and then be funny on top of it. She has to emit a confidence that she's in control.

It used to be that you had to make female TV characters perfect so no one would be offended by your 'portrayal' of women. Even when I started out on 'The Office' eight years ago, we could write our male characters funny and flawed, but not the women. And now, thankfully, it's completely different.

I think Amy Poehler and Tina Fey have done so much for women in comedy in the sense that they've normalized it. You don't think, 'I'm going to watch that comedy starring a woman,' you think, 'I'm going to watch that funny show.' They refuse to play the foils for men, or be reduced to the butt of every joke, and I love that about both of them.

Yes, some women are funny. No, some women aren't funny. It's similar to how some women are tall and, you know, some women are short.

Why are comedic parts for women the exception, not the rule?

At some point in the past, it was decided that women in comedy are never supposed to be shown in an unflattering light. But in comedy, you need all of your tools to be funny.

It's very hard for a woman in comedy. It's hard for women to be bold and not care what anyone, particularly men, think. Maybe that is why so many women comics are lesbians.