We're in a different time right now, and I think we're ready to see a different type of female hero.

I'm sure that there's frustration that comes with wanting to just have a normal mom. But, I don't really know if they see it as any different than any other problem you might have with a parent. I think everybody can think about one thing that their parents used to do, all the time, that would embarrass you.

I didn't go to prom - I was homeschooled.

Maybe you're not perfect, but you're willing to actually look at yourself and take some kind of accountability. That's a change. It might not mean that you can turn everything around, but I think there's something incredibly hopeful about that.

I had started acting when I was 7, and I was always wrong. I would always get to the very end [of the audition], but I wasn't a perfect package of one thing. I wasn't a cliche, and it always worked against me. I wasn't pretty enough to play the popular girl, I wasn't mousy enough to be the mousy girl. Then there was a TV show that Toni Collette was starring in. And when a role to play a girl who was struggling with identity came, I thought: "Oh, this is what I was supposed to do. Everything's leading up to this moment." I was 18. I was like, "This is it." I didn't get it. And I was devastated.

The way that I'm feeling the shift in movie industry is that women are allowed to be part of the development process. So I do feel like things are changing because I'm allowed to option books or write an original screenplay or direct. Those possibilities are really wide open. I think that males still struggle to write for females, which is totally fine because I don't think I could write a really impactful male role because that's not the life that I lived. So we'll just keep shouting and say we need more opportunities for not just women but people that are just different.

Surrounding myself with women of different backgrounds and on different paths and in different stages of their lives has become so valuable to me.