When I graduated from Brown after majoring in women's studies, I made my first PBS documentary, 'Women of Substance.' My first feature documentary was called 'American Hollow,' which I did for HBO and was at the Sundance Film Festival.

I'm not sure I would make a direct connection between having press attention as a young person and being interested in the media as an older person. I came to it more organically, coming from a family of Irish Catholic storytellers. Storytelling is a pastime and important part of my family's history and culture.

With 'Women in Hollywood,' I didn't direct it, but I produced it, and what we did is followed the money of Hollywood and how that intersects with issues relating to women and, frankly, sexism.

There's a great op-ed piece by Kurt Johnson, who runs The List Project, that I recommend everyone read. He was talking about how he's been trying to get out of Iraq who were our allies, who are now subject to torture, and their families are being killed because of their alliance to the United States.

I'm Japanese, but restaurants in my hometown served the most sanitized versions of California rolls. I grew up eating a lot of Japanese food at home that my parents or grandparents made.

When I was a child growing up in Maine, one of my favorite things to do was to look for sand dollars on the seashores of Maine, because my parents told me it would bring me luck. But you know, these shells, they're hard to find. They're covered in sand. They're difficult to see.

Until you have a son of your own... you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son.

Parents look at me like I'm somebody pretty important, and say, We were raised on your characters, and now we're enjoying them all over again with our children.