My knowledge of horror films is pathetic because I can't really watch them.

My point was the world is missing female characters. A lot of times there is one female character, maybe even a cool one, maybe even an important one. But where are all the rest?

I'm the mother of two daughters, one of whom is going to get possessed. It's really spooky and great. I'm shooting it right now. That's why I'm in Chicago. I wanted to tell you about the other direction that this trying-to-get-more-female-characters thing has taken, which is that I launched my own film festival last year.

It's partly because our culture so hyper-sexualizes females that if you don't measure up to whatever we're forced to think is the standard, then you feel inadequate.

When I got pregnant, I told [Susan Sarandon ]. She said, "All right. I'm gonna tell you the thing to do when you're giving birth: Push like you're trying to win a prize, like you want to be the best patient he's ever had. He's going to give you a prize for winning that." So I did. [The doctor] said, "You are probably the best pusher I've had as a patient."

The creators of kids' media had no idea they were leaving out that many female characters. They were in utter shock that the worlds they were creating were so bereft of female presences.

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?