I grew up with sports, but I was definitely not good enough to become a professional athlete - I just loved the storytelling aspect of it.

There is part of you as a female - no question - that feels like you have to be overprepared and outwork the men because people are automatically going to look at you and say, 'Well, you didn't play football,' or, 'You don't know what you're talking about,' because you are a female.

When there is a certain subject matter where I want to get involved, where I think I could add to the conversation, and especially with gender issues, I appreciate having that voice and that seat at the table.

My friends would always joke that I'm 'the grandmother' and 'the homebody' because I can't stay up past nine o'clock, but a lot of that rest is so important for me.

I have three older brothers, and we all have different combinations of parents. My father was the best man at my mom's first wedding! And my brother's mother - my dad's first wife - is the sister to my mom's first husband's second wife. So my brothers are both stepcousins and stepbrothers. It's very '70s rock.

I wrote a script - a script about a guy working on the automobile assembly line; I never could get money for that. I did a pilot about minimum wage workers for HBO that didn't get picked up; they thought it was depressing, even though it was a comedy.

I believed that the husband takes care of the family, and the wife takes care of him, and they are true to each other. I know that sounds a romantic illusion, but it can be true.

You need money to have advocacy in America. People that don't have money don't have advocacy.