My parents are both from Vermont, very old-fashioned New England. We heated our house with wood my father chopped. My mom grew all of our food. We were very underexposed to everything.

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

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.

There were so many women who had worked throughout the war in every possible job. They were told, "Now leave, so the men can come in" and there was this whole feminizing of women: You have to be very, very retiring and submissive and whatever.

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 only movies I saw till I was 17 were made by Disney. My parents had this thing. Disney was like, you know, "Ford is a good car. Disney makes good movies that are good for kids and safe."

I immediately noticed there were far more male characters than female characters in the programs, even now, in the 21st century.