Maggie Gyllenhaal has arrived. If her own body of work and fantastic reputation weren’t enough to indicate that, then her inclusion in a roundtable conversation with a pantheon of fantastic actresses should.

Maggie Gyllenhaal sat down with Jessica Lange, Lizzy Caplan, Viola Davis, Ruth Wilson, and Taraji P. Henson for a Hollywood Reporter roundtable that covered all the hot touch points about actresses in the business today. Race, sexism, and aging were dissected and chewed over among these A-list talents.

Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that she used to be told that she was not “sexy enough” or “pretty enough” for parts she auditioned for. Gyllenhaal told one story that illustrated her point.

“When I was really young, I auditioned for this really bad movie with vampires,” Gyllenhaal recounted. “I wore a dress to the audition that I thought was really hot. Then I was told I wasn’t hot enough. My manager at the time said, ‘Would you go back and sex it up a little bit?’ So I put on leather pants, a pink leopard skinny camisole and did the audition again and still didn’t get the part. (Laughter.) After that, I was like, ‘OK, f— this!'”

Ya know, Maggie Gyllenhaal is not only pretty but also smart and opinionated, so extra sexy.

— Chet Miller (@thechetmiller) June 12, 2015

That doesn’t mean that Gyllenhaal is not interested in doing sex scenes on film.

“I think sex in film is so interesting,” Gyllenhall says now. “It’s uncomfortable to take your clothes off in front of people you don’t know, but it can be an opportunity for really interesting acting. I’m 37, and I’ve had two babies, and I’m really interested in nudity now.”

Some things do get better with age. Bravo Maggie Gyllenhaal. Bravo.

— Ivan Ataktew Samson (@chancechandler) June 12, 2015

The interesting thing is that, by rejecting the demands of others regarding how “sexy” she was supposed to look, Maggie Gyllenhaal has achieved sex symbol status. This allows Gyllenhaal to begin to explore that part of film without the sordid difficulties it may hold for actresses who were aiming to “be sexy” in a role.

“I was interested in it [when I was younger], too. But I was never the actress asked to be the hot girl who took her clothes off on her first day of work. I was never objectified that way.”

But Maggie Gyllenhaal is not interested in fake, plastic representations of femininity and looks.

“Isn’t it so much hotter to see a woman on TV who looks like an actual woman, someone whose arms aren’t perfect?” Gyllenhaal asks. “I am much more turned on when I see people’s bodies that look like bodies I recognize.”

.@mgyllenhaal in her latest shoot for @THR <3 pic.twitter.com/qVN7IoWyu1

— J e n n i f e r ♔ (@Jennifer0693) June 11, 2015