Movie studios are owned by giant corporations. They care about money; they dont care about movies.

We have a lot of women on the staff, obviously. It's a predominantly female writing staff and we hire the best people. It's not like we go we need more women or we need four women directing.

One of the reasons I wanted to do a show about Nashville in Nashville was because when I lived here, the hardest thing to go out and hear was country music. Country was taking place inside the studio and it was an export.

We get the best people we can get and it turns out a lot of them are women. I've said this before If you hire people solely on their merit you wind up hiring a lot of women. I wonder how many other shows even come close to our numbers.

I think this happens to a lot of people, men and women, where you reach a point in your life and all of a sudden realize that things have changed. You suddenly realize that people are coming up behind you, that maybe somebody might want to replace you for less money.

I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.

When people know I wrote 'Thelma and Louise,' they don't want to mess with me.