You can't be a woman and not be a feminist, I don't think. If you care about the world and the world you exist in and your rights.

I loved working with kids, and kids are the most incredibly discerning audience. And if they don't believe you, they will tell you and let you know. I mean, kids is where it's at, really.

Different directors have different things, so when I left Mike Leigh, as it were, and I went into other projects after 'All or Nothing,' it took some getting used to - what do you mean there's a script?!?' That kind of thing.

You think that adulthood will hit and you'll suddenly be more capable. But that doesn't happen, ever, does it?

On 'Sunny,' the main actors are adults, and we're all friends, and we all have the same sense of humor, so there's a lot of improvising.

Hedwig' was pretty much all the things I wanted to do that other people said I probably shouldn't do: drag, punk rock, stand-up comedy... You know, combine them all in a thing that's supremely uncommercial from the objective point of view.

Americans are right to believe the American Dream is fading. But that dream only became a possibility for white men as a result of the labor struggles and reforms of the New Deal, and it began to extend to minorities and women only after the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

I have learned so much from Nelson Mandela, and he has been my leader. He is a perpetual inspiration for me and millions of others around the world.