I have a two-year-old who just turned three, and my four-year-old just turned five. I have the same irrational feelings taking them to pre-school. It's this charged combination of stress and joy and anxiety and excitement. When they're away, you've got a sudden loss of purpose and this ever-present fear about the kid's welfare. The departure of our children from our nest is not an easy thing.

Sometimes music helps. If I feel that it's bogus, I'll literally just call myself out on camera and say that it's dishonest. You do whatever it takes.

I just wanted to make sure that yes, that those horror - they worked as a genre. To me, I just wanted to be touched by the film in the way that I saw plausible. Which is the story about compassion - giving and receiving it in those desperate times of need.

I bet you could look at every single thing I've ever done and reduce it to that parenting schematic.

I'm thinking about anything and everything. I'm making stuff up in my head, I'm using sense memory. Sometimes when it doesn't come and you've got no choice because you're getting paid to do it, you grasp at straws. It's always easy now with my kids. I just create some "what-ifs" in my head, something horrible that would devastate me as a mother.

Whether youre making a million dollar film or a $100 million film there is never enough money, theres never enough time.

When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them - my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a wife, as a lover, as a daughter.