We talked about various aspects of what we wanted to talk about, Hillary [Clinton] and [Donald] Trump and down-ballot stuff, various issues. One of the things that it showed was you've got to use fear.

I think Spider-Man [film], the first one particularly, really figured out the formula of, "Oh, tell the story that they told in the comic. It was compelling. That's why it's iconic."

When I created Buffy, I wanted to create a female icon, but I also wanted to be very careful to surround her with men that not only have no problem with the idea of a female leader, but were in fact engaged and even attracted to the idea.

Basically that you can do anything. If you pool your resources,and just give up the idea that you're going to act like a normal person or sleep, if you want it hard enough and do it well enough, it happens. A lot of really talented people either sort of get crushed under the wheel of the movie studio system or desperately try and get their next gig in TV. I understand why, because we've all got to put food on the table and the brass ring is out there, we'd all like to be making the Emmy-winning shows and the blockbusters and all that, but at the same time you could be doing stuff yourself.

Hillary Clinton is more in the center of things than I am, but she also knows how to work with the opposition, which is a necessary talent in politics right now.

It's very important that we start creating new content again. We can only build on nostalgia so much before we have nothing left to build on.

Stories come from violence, they come from sex. They come from death. They come from the dark places that everyone has to go to, kind of wants to, or doesn't, but needs to deal with. If you raise a kid to think everything is sunshine and flowers, they're going to get into the real world and die. That's the reason fairy tales are so creepy, because we need to encapsulate these things, to inoculate ourselves against them, so that when we're confronted by the genuine horror that is day-to-day life we don't go insane.