I admire woman like Marissa Mayer, the first female engineer and then CEO of Yahoo. Women who don't only strive to be the equals of men, but who strive to live up to their full potential.

I came out of a building and this woman stopped me, like, 'You're Miss Universe!' And she was a New Yorker! I'm not used to New Yorkers being fans, because they're so blase about it, you know.

I was always interested in politics and I had great leadership skills from a young age.

In some places, women get paid 75 percent of what men earn for doing the same job, working the same hours, and I do not believe that is right.

Starting my career as a kid, I was doing what jobs I got.

I was the suburban kid of Scottish parents, and the idea of an acting career was so beyond my experience. I didn't even know there were drama schools until a friend told me.

My aspirations were never anything other than I really, really admired certain singers over the years, and I just wanted to do the best I could. And that has been kind of like the way I've been fortunate enough to be able to have a career, have some success, and yet continue to learn my craft.

Sylvia Plath, Rumi, there's a lot of spoken word poets who do a really incredible job putting their spoken work into page poetry - that's what I strive to do.