Allison Schroeder

I can't tell you the number of stories I've told with a female protagonist don't get bought, or they do get bought and get changed drastically. Or, I will literally write into the script different races, and they get cast all-white. I hope that stops and it opens the door for more voices to be heard in movies.

I've been rewritten on past projects and thought, 'That's not what she was - she was this really powerful woman, and there's nothing wrong with that.' I'm going to keep writing them, and hopefully people will start making them.

Sometimes you feel all alone. You come out of a meeting, and something sexist has been said to you: That movie will never be made with that female lead. And you think, 'How am I ever gonna get another job?' When you hear other women having the same experiences, it makes you feel like, 'Well, I'm gonna keep going, and we're gonna fight this system.'

You think NASA is going to be cutting edge, but they've got so many buildings that are just left over from the '60s. It's old.

There was an email forwarded to me from a first-grade teacher, and she said she was teaching them civil rights for MLK weekend, and a little first-grader stood up, and he said, 'I can explain segregation,' and proceeded to explain all the scenes from 'Hidden Figures.' And I died because that's everything.

We need more diversity - we need more African-Americans on screen, Latinos, Asians, different religions. We have to be better about reflecting what our world looks like.

My first break was becoming a staff writer on the rebooted '90210.' And then I got stuck writing in the teen genre for a while.

I don't think I've ever been called up for an action film with a male lead - which is a shame. I'd love to take on Bond.

I think you leave your imprint on every screenplay. I like to bring my experience as a woman to all my female characters that hopefully makes them a little more layered and complex.

I'm pursuing film and TV, and it's exciting because I feel I can write in almost any genre now.

I think a lot of times people look at me and say, 'Well, we can't possibly hand a show over to her to run.' It seemed like executives would be worried about me controlling a room and having power, and I'd say, 'Oh, I can control a room. I can give an order like nobody's business.'

I'm a stickler for structure. So I tend to make sure I'm hitting certain points in the script and that I'm progressing and moving things along. You know, are the characters keeping the plot moving along? And are they true, and do I know their motivations?