I am a feminist, and I didn't think women would accept a throwback heroine.

You can't go down anybody else's [road]. It's your dream; it's your life. You don't have to be told by other people what to make of yourself. You decide.

I really get fired up with female protagonists. I can really feel the difference in myself when I am writing a script that has a woman at the center.

They're [children] less forgiving. You have to be very conscious of the fact that they're not going to just accept things; they're going to question. They're going to move around if you bore them. They'll actually leave. So you really have to be on your toes.

I have a children's theater background, so I grew up performing for child audiences; it's sort of my specialty. I know the child audience pretty well - or felt like I did because I performed for them so much. I studied a lot about the child audience, about theater. So it was naturally a place that I gravitated to.

I am a feminist, and I didn't think women would accept a throwback heroine.

The first draft you're pretty much on your own, so I love that. I can let my imagination go wild. I just go crazy. Then, over the years - it takes years to write these things, to make these things come to pass - there are many, many, many drafts. For Maleficent, there were at least 15.