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.

Kelly Clarkson is the most adorable person on the planet. She is just so nice.

The world will provide you with every imaginable obstacle, but the one most difficult to overcome will be the lack of faith in yourself. Leave it to others to have doubts about you.

I don't think any studio - it was a long shot at the time - but I don't think any studio in a million years would make 'Thelma and Louise' right now. But there's so many other kinds of movies they won't make right now.

The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watched it and was just completely jaw-droppingly shocked at how current it was.

You can point to a lot of women showrunners that have had long and successful careers. In terms of the kinds of movies that women can get made, as long as the business operates under this model of the first-weekend [box office] focus, with huge movies aimed at super-young audiences, it will be really tough for women to do something that really changes the landscape. Because honestly, until they figure out how to get grown women into the theaters on the first weekend, it won't change.

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.