There aren't a lot of female story artists, and it's baffling to me. There are a lot of kids in school that are female and I wonder, 'Where did they all go?' People have brought it up, asking me, 'What did you do?' I don't really know. I puttered along, did my thing and gender has really never been an issue.

If you only do what you can do, you'll never be more than you are now.I never thought i'd be where I am now, but the fact that I am is pretty cool.

One of the things we love about Po [Kung Fu Panda] is that he's vulnerable. He's someone that we can all identify with because he has those insecurities. He's an outsider feeling guy.

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.

We go for our own reality. I remember some of our guys saying it is way harder to make stylized art directed explosions of jade rather than a regular explosion of shrapnel.

We did two films [Kung Fu Panda], because the first two films were so embraced by the Chinese audiences we wanted to make something we could push further and since this is a co-production, it seemed like the perfect time to create something that felt native to Chinese audiences.

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.