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

Part of accepting a role is being interested in the character and part of it is being interested in the movie or what it means and the exploration of it. But it's more about not knowing the answers to certain questions but wanting to go on the journey of discovery to find the answers.

I had a tough time fitting in, as I guess most kids do. I felt like school was kind of a grand opportunity to figure yourself out and to figure out what you wanted.

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.

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

Very few interviews are a conversation. It's usually a question and I have to answer for two minutes. By the end of the day, I kind of feel gross. It's like you go to dinner with a friend and then you get home and you're like: "Ugh, I dominated that conversation too much. I wish I let them talk more." That's how it feels for me every day I do press.

Sometimes I laugh with my parents, and sometimes I yell at them, and both are therapeutic.