We owe it to the audience to put more characters onscreen that reflect them and that speak to issues of race and gender as well as to a character's sexual preference.

I don't understand why people still behave as though making movies with female protagonists is risky, given that - hello - we do make up over 50 percent of the population, and we go to movies.

There are still so few female directors. There are far fewer writers than we'd like to see.

When doing family entertainment, you don't actually worry about kids. You know what you can't do. But in terms of sensibility and sophistication and wit and ambition, aim for your own taste level, and kids will - if they're interested in the subject matter - be glad that you did.

Painting and photography keep the creative channel open, and for an actor, it's to keep alive, it's to keep awake, it's to keep watching, it's to keep feeling, it's to keep enjoying, to keep that sensuality of feeling alive.

There's music every day. I don't think I could write without it. Not that I listen while I'm writing. It's more hearing a piece of music that I want to somehow convert into prose, as a creative inspiration.

My father told us all the time: to become a good writer takes writing. Because the more you do it, the better you get at it. It's like bull-riding. You can't do it once, you know. You've got to practice it and practice it.

The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens.