To really be known and really let someone else be known is very vulnerable. It's a weird thing. Just being an actress in Hollywood is very vulnerable. To let all these other people decide whether you're really of value or not, you have to really be strong to know that, of course, they have a right to their opinion, but their opinion doesn't matter as far as yourself.

I grew up with a lot of spirituality. It wasn't necessarily organized religion, because my mom was Jewish and my dad was Muslim. I went to Catholic school. There was a lot of conversation about comparative religions.

We have states that are throwing away the DNA of rapists. How can a woman be so inconsequential, that we as a nation aren't standing up and doing something about this intimate, violent act?

Throughout history, the human species has struggled to some extent. It's part of us, as human beings, to provide better for our children and to try to do all these different things. The expectations have changed drastically, and thank God they have. Women have more rights, and women do have their own power in the world.

If somebody needs, like, a phone call every day or some kind of constant companionship, I'm not a really good friend for them. I can talk to my best friend every couple years and be really happy.

I was a single mom at 20. A lot of choices came out of that. I've seen a lot of my friends be in relationships they didn't want to be in because they couldn't leave.

There are so many issues that impact women. When we talk about prison reform, for example, women were [once] sterilized in women's prisons. When they were giving birth, they were asked to sign paperwork but they weren't even completely conscious of what they were signing. That sounds like something that would never happen in America, but it was happening, not just in America, but in [California], one of the most progressive states in the United States.