When I was growing up, I wanted passionately to be a physicist.

If you're a white male growing up in this society, you're constantly receiving encouragement to go on in science in the form of all the images that you're receiving.

When I was in seventh grade, I was bored out of my mind. We seemed to be learning the same things over and over in science and math, and two of the boys in my class were allowed to move ahead into these advanced classes, but I wasn't allowed because I was a girl.

The world is a complex place.

Quite often, intent on conveying how things can go wrong for a culture (science fiction) or an individual (horror) or all of magical creation (fantasy), works of fantastika often preclude comedy, because humor gets in the way of messages of doom or struggle.

I began my career as a physicist. And in the White House, my buddies were the people from the White House office of science and technology policy. But a lot of the people were lawyers. They like winning an argument, but science-based, evidence-based reasoning was just sort of not in their framework.

I was doing chemistry in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. It was the first time I'd lived alone, and I had an epiphany while I was spending a lot of time watching TV and decided I wanted try acting.

No matter what policy initiatives we take on, we are going to need a permanent repository for nuclear fuel based on the law and sound science.