You have Cameron Crowe write an incredible monologue for you just based on the things that you're talking about. It just became this opportunity that was too exciting a process to pass up.

I value my privacy and my personal life - and I certainly don't exploit my personal life.

I'm terrified to ride a bike in a city - and I grew up riding bikes in the city. I've just heard enough stories - I have enough friends who've been hit by taxicabs and things.

I campaigned for [Barack] Obama for more than a year. I was in Iowa, Minnesota, California, Arizona - just traveling around to help get the word out. It was such a huge, spirited campaign, and so positive. But you travel around to cities in the U.S. now and there's just this hopelessness that has set in. It makes it hard to understand why it seems so impossible to make any kind of progressive change with an administration that is seemingly progressive, or why we keep encountering such political roadblocks to change.

Are people who want this kind of progressive change not turning up at polling stations? Are they not voting for progressive representatives? It's hard to put your finger on why we are where we are.

I'm very comfortable with my sexuality, my body, my face - well, sometimes I'm not comfortable with my face, but it's stuck there and there's nothing I can do about it.

There's no such thing as an aura of mystery anymore. It doesn't exist. That's a thing of the past.