Looking through the café, I didn't recognize her at first. I didn't expect the tattoos on her forearms and the Joan Jett haircut, or the well-worn T-shirt and jeans. She looked like a student-nose in a book, wielding a highlighter to mark important passages.

Most people are familiar with actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo from The Truth about Cats and Dogs (1996), in which she plays a radio talk-show host who falls in love with a guy who, because they haven't met face-to-face, comes to believe she looks like Uma Thurman. Garofalo is also known for her self-deprecating stand-up comedy shows.

Lately, Garofalo has been making waves in a whole different ballpark. Her outspoken stance against the U.S. war on Iraq has made her a target of criticism, ridicule, and even hatred. Her willingness to put herself in the line of fire on right-wing media outlets and her ability to eloquently run circles around political opponents have raised her visibility. Her sharp wit and courage have been a gust of fresh air.

You are known mostly as a comedian and actress. What inspired you to become politically active and why do you think it's important to be so?

I think what happened to me (and a lot of people) is, when you discover punk rock or "alternative" music in your youth, you become exposed to another kind of culture, perspective, and much more interesting people than your Top 40-listening friends -- as nice as they may be. For me, that happened when I heard quasi-punk British and Irish music my senior year of high school in 1982. I was so disinterested in being social at that time. Plus, I'm five-foot-one and weighed 160 pounds, so I didn't even have to try not to be social.

When I got to college, it was more of the same: 160-pound exile. But luckily, I was near Boston, which at that time was an amazing music and comedy city with a lot of really interesting and diverse people. I wound up meeting incredibly intelligent, strong women and started getting more introduced to feminism, which is not a dirty word, by the way, and neither is liberal.

Meaning what?