Actress, writer, and comedian June Diane Raphael is most recognizable either as Jane Fonda’s bold entrepreneurial daughter on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie or as the co-host of the wildly popular podcast How Did This Get Made? A decade into her Hollywood career, June has already carved out a pioneering path in an industry that often makes thinking outside the box a challenging prospect. In 2011—two years before Veronica Mars did it—June and writing partner Casey Wilson funded their film Ass Backwards via Kickstarter after investors dropped out. She also got in on the ground floor of online content with the web series, Burning Love, and remains one of the rare truly prominent female voices in the crowded field of podcasting. And as new media opportunities arrive, June seems ever eager to be a part of them, using her dry wit to blaze a path for other women to follow.

Last weekend Netflix kicked off a second season of Grace and Frankie featuring June Diane Raphael’s Brianna in an expanded role as not only Jane Fonda’s daughter, but also the CEO behind Lily Tomlin’s organic lube enterprise. (Yeah, you read that correctly.) June’s sexy, confident Brianna clashes with Tomlin’s unpragmatic approach to business. And when the Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen’s lawyer characters get involved in the dispute, Brianna is the smirking eye of the show’s comedy hurricane. June Diane Raphael spoke with V.F. Hollywood over the phone about her career, being a working mom, and the legion of podcast fans who crave her comedic insight.

VF.com: You’re very committed to writing scripts for yourself. What do you see in your own work that you don’t find elsewhere in Hollywood?

June Diane Raphael: The women that I find most interesting are flawed, and not necessarily likable in the big studio definition of that word. I grew up in a family of sisters and just such a huge female energy surrounding me that it was just so natural for me to want to write about women and especially female friendships that I find so rich and complicated in a way that I don’t know men really experience. Some of my friendships with women are more complicated than my marriage to a man. That’s what I've always been drawn to, in some ways, I have trouble writing male characters.

I have read certain scripts where I’m like, “Ugh, women don’t talk this way. Women would never say that. Why don’t I get any funny lines? Why do I always have to be the long-suffering girlfriend who’s supporting the comedy of these crazy guys?” I want to have the jokes. I want to be funny and weird and distasteful. Now I have a deeper understanding of it after having written for so long and feeling like, “When I write male characters I have to dig deep and really force myself to not have them playing basketball or video games.”

Brianna, your character on Grace and Frankie, is obviously an extreme example but what elements of her character do you most identify with in terms of being the kind of women that you like to play?

What I love about her is she is so unfiltered and she’s not worried about being seen as nice or good, which I think can be a real trap for—I include myself in this group—a lot of women of feeling like we need to be nice and to be liked. She’s so comfortable not being liked and saying whatever she wants to say. That’s really fun to play because there’s just so much freedom in that. I actually think since becoming a mother I have more of that to offer the character. When you have a child it’s kind of like that mama bear intensity comes out. That’s something I’ve definitely been able to channel to a character who has no desire to have children.