We're evolving as a culture as well and as more equality gets supplanted in society, well, in the U.S. anyway, it's only helping women. We do have much more work to do though, in spreading awareness about where we fall short in our culture and in other cultures.

As I've matured, the roles are a bit more layered and representative of where I am today as an older person with more responsibilities, perspective and hopefully not too many regrets.

There was a period in my late 30s where work slowed down for me, as it does for a lot of women. You're no longer the young, cute thing anymore and maybe you're not quite old enough to play (what others think of) in terms of women in charge.

When I work with filmmakers today, I'm really an advocate for the women's roles that I see, to make them as layered and as deep as possible. I think many of them are underwritten.

When I was a young actress, I was called in just to do my part, and I didn't have any say or weight as far as any decisions go. But today, having worked as a producer and also having lived a little, I feel like I've found my voice more. I'm sure that it has influenced me as an actor and it will continue to do so.

It's very difficult to put together an independent movie and a lot of times people really don't hire casting directors for that. Instead, they look for people that they've seen in other movies or they're friends with.

We're evolving as a culture as well and as more equality gets supplanted in society, well, in the U.S. anyway, it's only helping women. We do have much more work to do though, in spreading awareness about where we fall short in our culture and in other cultures.