Photograph: Roxana Marrquin

You switched over to a digital process for your last series of works, self-portraits dressed as different clowns, which was shown in 2004.What was that like for you?
Initially, when I was doing the clowns, I barely knew how to use Photoshop. It’s a whole other learning process of “How do I do this and still make it look like a photograph, but not really?” The process of shooting digitally completely changed my way of working, because I can just see things instantly on the computer. In the past, I would shoot, like, one or two rolls of film, and then have to take off the makeup and the wig and the costume, and bring the film to the lab, and then wait, like, two or three hours, pick up the film, and then sometimes I’d have to reshoot everything! It’s totally changed stuff. I mean, one unfortunate side effect is that I tend to work really late into the night because I just keep going, I’ve come so far and I am so close! And so I’ll just keep shooting and shooting. But it’s really fun; I love it.

Do you feel the new media and even reality TV have changed the way artists work?
It’s too soon to tell how the computer and things like YouTube are going to affect certain people’s work. It’s already happened with some artists who work in video, like Ryan Trecartin, people like that who were discovered on YouTube. I think he’s fantastic. I mean, that kind of freedom of just tossing things off and being so all over the place is probably a result of a familiarity with the computer and with video programs. I do watch reality shows! I think at various points I’ve gotten a little addicted to them. The first year of Survivor I got really hooked. I remember canceling dinner appointments.

Can you talk a little bit about your upcoming show?
Last year I did this project for French Vogue, this quick thing of six pictures, based on party photos of people—you know, wanna-be celebrities, where you get your photo taken and you’re so happy that someone is taking your picture. And that was how I was adding the backgrounds that look like a bar, or a crowded room. I was noticing in fashion magazines these shots of women in ballgowns in their kitchen with their toddlers, and thinking about how that is so over-the-top. So the current work was inspired by that project I had to do for the magazine. I thought, What if I do these portraits of people who are kind of just saying, see how wonderful and successful and wealthy I am, but they also look like people who have really lived lives. When I projected them, they seemed suddenly powerful, like really tough broads who have lived through a lot and are kind of sad.

I went to the exhibit at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2006, and some of those photos were really large; scale changes perception a lot. How do you make that sort of decision?
Yeah, some of the history ones and some of the early ones—like in the mid-’80s, from the Fairytales series—those were really big. At that time I was trying a lot of different things. And then I thought, Well, maybe I am just doing that because everybody is going bigger. You know, paintings were bigger, and so everything else followed. And then I realized I was conscious of wanting to go big with these, because it occurred to me that not that many women artists do really massive things compared to a lot of men who have their first solo show and everything is gigantic. That’s really interesting. So I could say I was sort of responding to that.

Is there anyone working today you like?
Olaf Breuning’s most recent show at Metro was great. I mentioned Ryan Trecartin. She is not even emerging anymore, but Alex Bag is great. She is a video artist, but she uses herself and creates characters that are really funny. And an Israeli woman artist, Something Ben Something [Tamy Ben Tor]. She does a similar thing with characters.

Do you think of yourself as a celebrity? What do you think of that idea in regard to artists generally?
Well, even though I am well-known, I don’t think I’m, like, a celebrity. I don’t agree with the idea of artists being celebrities; it’s sort of gross. In England, the structure promotes that. They have so many different daily magazines and newspapers that the tabloids are just constantly looking for news, and so they’ve turned all these people and all these artists into celebrities just because they have nothing else to write about. So Tracey Emin and everyone, they seem to be kind of reveling in it, but I think it’s really kind of disgusting. It makes sense for people in the entertainment business, because they depend on selling tickets or catering their product to the audience because they want people to buy it. They’re trying to make something likable. Art shouldn’t be like that.

Cindy Sherman’s new show is on view at Metro Pictures starting Sat 15.