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.

Women can feel inspired by the story. People who haven't been traditionally given a chance to use their skills or shine are given a chance, and they prevail.

I realized that in all the sectors of society where there's a huge gender disparity, the one place that can be fixed overnight is onscreen. You think about getting half of Congress, or the presidency ... It's going to take a while no matter how hard we work on it. But half of the board members and half of the CEOs can be women in the next movie somebody makes; it can be absolutely half.

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

I once read a quote that I think was Michelle Pfeiffer in an article, who said that she thought people went into acting because maybe if you could convince millions of people to like you, you will finally like yourself, approve of yourself. I don't know if that may have been a part of it.

I don't really bust anybody publicly. It's much more efficient if I can impact the creators. So that's what we do. It's had a great impact.

I watch very little television, actually. There's so many shows I want to watch and then I know I'll get hooked and I have to binge-watch the entire thing.