If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.

I was really lucky that I had an aunt who was very inspiring to me. She was different than anybody in my family on either side.

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.

I do like the process of producing. Later in my career, like when I had the TV show, I was a producer and I've been on a few things.

We have it in our heads that women only need to take up a certain amount of space and then we've done right by them. It's the same in every profession. We get a handful of women professors, a few female board members - that looks normal.

The film festival is in a town in Arkansas, a quintessentially American town with a little town square. It's to champion women and diversity in all media, so TV, movies, eventually, digital, whatever you get into. That's the goal. We're using the same philosophy as my institute, which is to make it research-based and really try to work directly with filmmakers and content creators and move the needle. It's the only film festival in the world where the prizes are guaranteed distribution.

When it came time for college, I told my parents I was going to major in acting. And they were so removed from anything to do with show business - my dad built our house and my mom grew our food.