Jennifer Yuh Nelson

I think in the experience of growing up and realizing who you are, what your place in the world is can be quite scary.

Growing up, my sisters and I would always talk stories. One of my frustrations was I didn't know anything about cameras. I didn't know how to make a film and I obviously didn't have a special effects budget. I was a kid. So I was learning to draw to get down the stuff that was in my head, that I couldn't afford to actually do.

My producer for the first 'Kung Fu Panda' movie, Melissa Cobb, is an amazing woman. She's supersmart and helps push everyone - male, female, anyone - to do their best.

There aren't a lot of female story artists, and it's baffling to me. There are a lot of kids in school that are female and I wonder, 'Where did they all go?' People have brought it up, asking me, 'What did you do?' I don't really know. I puttered along, did my thing and gender has really never been an issue.

I don't think about the gender thing very much. But when I speak at schools, I've had female students say to me afterwards, ""I never envisioned myself being a director, since I've never seen women do it."" But after seeing me, they can picture themselves directing, so maybe we'll see more female directors.

I don't believe in overcooking the actors too much. Especially when it's a real performance that I'm looking for.

I think the idea of a distant, far off dystopia, where the world is completely different from what we have now, is good, but it's been done. Especially in YA movies.

I'm a hard-core geek.

I've been asked about the glass ceiling a lot, and I don't think of myself as some kind of crusader going around smashing glass. I don't feel like I had to - and that is a very, very strong flag showing the people around me made it, so I didn't have to.

I like action. It's not typical, but it's a passion.

Every movie goes through that U-shape where you start with 'Oh that's a great idea. I love it.' Everything's possible and then you face 'Oh, we can't do that, and that's impossible, and that's a bad choice.' You go the practicality of it. And then you come up to 'Great.' But that middle part is when you don't have results yet.

I've been drawing my whole life. My mom says my sister and I were drawing by age 1. Animation seems a real, natural extension of drawing as a way of telling a story visually.