Doing the right thing always pays off, but for some it takes a bit longer.

Laura Dern was well-known before she played the woman who Ellen DeGeneres came out to on Ellen in 1997’s “The Puppy Episode,” but in a recent interview she opened up about the backlash that ensued.

“I was doing successful independent movies, and, only months before that, I was in Jurassic Park, the most successful movie ever,” she recalled in an interview with Vulture. “So it was like, you’re being offered this, you’re being offered that – and it just stopped, which is kind of wild.”

For almost a year, Laura said she was unable to find work simply because she’d played a lesbian on TV.

However, she went on to say that the Ellen episode was the “greatest thing I could’ve ever been part of,” and called it “an incredible honor.”

“A lot of people in my life really worried,” she explained. “And I was like, ‘This is ridiculous.’ This is where I grew up in a bubble and didn’t realize we weren’t there yet or something.”

“We all spent the next couple of years really struggling in work and safety,” she added of the other celebrities, like Oprah Winfrey, who were part of the show. “It was radical to experience that. It was the only time I ever experienced having to have full security detail.”

Still, the experience “shaped and continues to shape who I am as an advocate, as an activist, as a parent.”

We’re so grateful for you, Laura!