I'm very competitive, I think.

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.

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'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.

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."

That's the really frustrating thing, but also the fixable thing. My theory why no one notices is that that's the [women's roles] ratio thing they grew up with. It's just been that way forever, so they don't see it.

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.