What started your career in activism? You also discuss a part of your life when you lost a number of friends to H.I.V. and AIDS. Was that it? Yes, I think that was the first time I was truly awakened in politics. My friends were dropping like flies, and the government wasn’t doing anything. You don’t watch an entire generation take water hoses and dogs on the front line during the ’60s or watch another generation perish from AIDS and then get to drive around in big cars and do nothing. At this point, I don’t think it’s time for any of us to sit down about anything.

You don’t mention much about encountering racism in show business directly in your book, but clearly racial justice is something that is important to you. Do you feel that black actors have it easier now? I think it will become easier because of what’s happening now. It’s going to be easier for young girls to come up in this business, thanks to the higher awareness brought about by the #MeToo movement. It will become easier because people are waking up now. You have the millennials — of all races — lying down in the streets to protest police brutality, for instance. These are not dark times. These are awakening times.

Your good friend Bette Midler was criticized on the internet for tweeting “Women are the n-word of the world,” a reference to a quote by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Did you think that was a mistake? I don’t know if the people who were in an uproar knew that it was a quote. I talked to Bette, and I just told her to keep doing what she’s doing because everybody in the world knows how much of an activist she is, how wonderful she is. I was walking on the beach with Bette once, and she stopped to pick up trash. None of us are perfect in this struggle. We are outraged and sometimes will say things that are impulsive. We’re all on edge, and we all make mistakes, but when you’re a Bette Midler or a Jenifer Lewis, you’re forgiven. End of story.