I don't think about the gender thing very much. But when I speak at schools, I've had female students say to me afterwards, "I never envisioned myself being a director, since I've never seen women do it." But after seeing me, they can picture themselves directing, so maybe we'll see more female directors.

If you have a movie that doesn't strive to go to a certain emotional point, you can do anything and it will be fine and funny. But if you have something pretty emotional at its core, you have to make it right. You don't want it overwrought or unearned. Everything has to be moving towards this one thing.

I think it's really nice to have an authenticity, it's a huge source for us to be able to lean on people who have that knowledge.

Po's [Kung Fu Panda] unending enthusiasm is something we wish we could have. We can't help but root for him because of his geek energy.

Tigress is my alternate personality, especially with children. I love animation because you get to do things you don't normally get to.

Every movie goes through that U-shape where you start with 'Oh that's a great idea. I love it.' Everything's possible and then you face 'Oh, we can't do that, and that's impossible, and that's a bad choice.' You go the practicality of it. And then you come up to 'Great.' But that middle part is when you don't have results yet.

When you make a movie, it's just so personal and then you put it out in front of people and it becomes something else.