I wasn't actually going to see the original film [Lord of the Ring], because I didn't think it was possible that a film could represent the books appropriately. So I was protesting, and I wasn't going to see them. And then my family all took a jaunt together, the entire family, to see the movies, and were like, "What, you're just going to stay home?" So I saw the movies and was thoroughly impressed that Peter Jackson managed to make my vision of the book come to life, as well as my sister's and my father's, and my aunt's and my uncle's, everyone's.

As a filmmaker, you have to understand the essence of the book and tell the story you want to see on the screen, and hopefully please yourself - because you cant possibly please everyone.

Every woman is after a kind of classy image.

I'm a good Canadian girl. I miss all that good stuff. I miss tobogganing and I miss snowboarding, but I've also learned to surf and I've become a water baby which I used to be relatively terrified of the water and I kayak all the time now and I'm able to run year round on the beach which you can't obviously do in Canada.

I just like short hair on women, I think it's cool. And I have wanted to cut my hair for very many years, but being on contract with a television show for six years prevents you from doing that, and then being on contract with a cosmetic endorsement campaign prevents you from doing that again. So for eight years, I've had to have long, flowing locks. And I was just so sick and tired of long, flowing locks, so I chopped them.

I tended to be a solitary young girl, and I still am. I would like to find a quiet corner and color in my coloring book. When I think back, I made that corner mine, not really caring about the rest of the house.

I am kind of prudish and I have very strict standards about how I present myself. But one of the things that I've always stood by is that women are beautiful and sexy. We shouldn't be afraid of that. [But] we need to make sure that we present that beauty and that sexiness in a way that says we are in control of our bodies. We're strong, we're classy, we're beautiful, powerful beings to be reckoned with, not victims.