My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life. My heart is in helping people and in the less materialistic side of things, but there's the side of me that's more polished. If I were to live in Africa, serving the poor, the number-one thing I'd miss wouldn't be running water or electricity—it would be style...being able to get dressed up and feel beautiful.

Every woman is after a kind of classy image.

If you watch a film from beginning to end, with no women in it, it's really difficult.

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.

When I got the job on 'Lost,' I was a broke university student living in the crappiest part of town, with a duct-taped back window on a broken-down car. I existed on peanut butter and tea.

I made a conscious decision when I was about 17 years old to strive towards mediocrity. I completely abandoned the idea of grandeur and importance, and I wanted to be mediocre.

I don't know if any of you feel this way, but it's like eventually, you see a woman come on screen and you go, "Oh, thank God!" You just sort of need a break from all this testosterone, which happened, I think, in one of my films, The Hurt Locker. I was in it for like five minutes, and people were like, "You were in that movie!" And I was like, "Well, kind of." And they were like, "No, you were!" 'Cause they needed a woman!