Memories, all those little experiences make up the fabric of our lives and on balance, I wouldn't want to erase any of them, tempting though it may be.

I feel better about my life every day. My kids get older. My life is very rich and full of wonderful things. I've been very lucky, careerwise.

After 2000 or so, I started to realize I wanted to be doing something else. I didn't want to be in front of a camera. I was frustrated. I didn't think I would stop acting, but I didn't want to be seen.

I've seen high and lows. When things go well that doesn't make me feel like some genius. Nor will I allow the next disappointment to make me feel like a complete failure.

I feel like casting is the most important aspect of making movies.

My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master's there and taught fifth and sixth grade in a public school. My dad had a more working-class lifestyle. He didn't go to college. He was an auto mechanic and a bartender and a janitor at Harvard.

I really feel that's part of why audiences go to movies now is to take you to a world you have no access to, whether it's the world of Avengers or Middle-earth or bars in Boston you would be afraid to go into. You see characters there - they aren't hobbits but they're close.