If nothing else, I want women to understand that they are powerful. If you look back at history, in almost every big moment, in every leap forward, you find ordinary women at the core. We have more ability to make changes in the world than we can imagine if we have the courage to try.

I think, first of all, every time you want to play somebody who is real is always challenging and always scary, because you are given a responsibility of someone's real life.

I don't think we should judge celebrities for doing charity work. Period. Whatever their reasons for doing it, they are shedding light on issues that would otherwise go unnoticed.

I don't listen to people who say my dreams are impossible; I just work to prove them wrong.

When our mothers are alive and healthy, they do extraordinary things... like the mothers of Plaza de Mayo, who marched in Argentinean plazas, defying the military junta dictatorship and demanding the whereabouts of their abducted children... or the Liberian mothers who faced down civil war armed only with T-shirts and courage.

No other health disparity is so stark; virtually every woman who dies giving birth lives in a poor country.

My children are still young, but I try to talk to them about giving back and how important it is, just to look at the world, be invested in things, to be passionate about things, to have a dream.