I think it's important for little girls growing up, and young women, to have one in every walk of life. So from that point of view, I'm proud to be a role model!

The women's movement had already paved the way, I think, for my coming.

I had both male and female heroes.

All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

There are things about our world that almost by their nature defy our ability to comprehend them. Some people use a religious register to deal with that - they call it God and that's a way of domesticating it.

I started culinary school at a very young age, and really I wanted to be out working, cooking, more than I wanted to be in a classroom. You could say I wasn't a very good student - I wanted to be a student of life and experience.

A lot of times when we work overseas we tend to put the experience of someone who lives overseas, a Chinese person or a Korean person or a Bosnian person, within the prism of an American life.

Everyone's films have done well of late. So when your film doesn't do well, you ask yourself, 'Oh, did I make a wrong choice?' And I strongly feel that it's your choices that make a good career. The track record has to be good.