Growing up in a violent home is a terrifying and traumatic experience that can affect every aspect of a child's life, growth, and development.

The tendency is to think if you are a professional woman, it's because you've turned your back on the traditional side. The tendency is not to recognize that we can excel as professionals without giving up our identity of being mother, wife and homemaker.

People show surprise that I have interests outside my political career. There is subtle surprise, for example, that I would be interested in a recipe.

Even though some in our government may claim that civil liberties must be compromised in order to protect the public, we must be wary of what we are giving up in the name of fighting terrorism.

For many years, I was obsessed about what I was eating, how many calories it had, and how much exercise I'd have to do.

Within my first year of moving abroad living on my own, my sister got ill - she got cancer - and at the same time, my mum got cancer, and she passed away. I think at that time it was a hard challenge for me to deal with it, but in a way, I have always taken strength out of anything that has come at me.

My mother has had breast cancer twice. And my mother has always been this very positive human being: a glass-half-full type. Like, when she was in treatment and feeling really bad, she would always talk about some nurse that was particularly nice to her.

It's very tricky to throw a morally flexible character onto the screen and have an audience empathize. It's always an exercise in restraint.