Women are in many ways second-class citizens in the United States in 2016, because of the way that we're portrayed in popular culture.

Even though I was 34 or 35 or something. I was like, “People can do that? Women can actually just say what they think?” It was an extraordinary experience to do that movie with her because every day was a lesson in how to just be yourself.

We all know the huge problem there is with entertainment in general leaving out women. Especially as actors, we know there are fewer great parts for women.

I met the former president of Iceland [Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir] once. I think she was president for, like, 16 years or something. She said she used to get letters from little boys saying, "Madam President, do you think it will ever be possible for a boy to be president?" Just like we assume that girls can't be politicians, they were assuming boys can't. That's what they thought. It's so crazy.

I always want a challenge. My whole career has been based on trying to avoid female characters that don't get to do anything. And it's really hard to avoid those.

What are we doing that for in the 21st century? Why on earth would we teach kids that girls are less important than boys? It just made no sense to me.

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."