I think I always had joie de vivre. But I had pretty bad self-esteem growing up and much of my adult life.

I just started asking my friends if they had noticed. None of them - feminists, mothers, daughters - noticed until I pointed it out. Then I decided to bring it up within the industry. I knew a lot of people, so I'd say, "Have you ever noticed how few female characters there are in kids movies?" when I met a director, a producer, whatever. And they said, "Oh, but that's not true anymore."

People think of me in the same breath as Robert Redford and Robert De Niro.

If we show fictional characters doing cool stuff, then girls will want to be it in real life.

Look at the number of cop shows and lawyer shows and forensics shows... I think there could be room for two quite different examinations of the same political office.

I would say how important it is that we stop teaching kids, from the beginning, that boys are more important than girls. It's the 21st century, you know, let's go here. We have to show kids that boys and girls share the sandbox equally and do equally interesting things. We're teaching kids something that we have to try to get rid of later on. Why not just stop filling them with unconscious gender bias?

I had told my agents that I never wanted to do an hour-long TV show. I said, "I'm not that stupid." Because it's the worst lifestyle in Hollywood.