If you're looking for reps, write letters that are short and professional. Make sure you have a really great reel of yourself. If there are friends you know who are making short films, do them - it's all material for your reel.

For me, the banner that I want to wave in terms of giving a jump start to writers of any gender is just to make female protagonists as complex as their male counterparts.

The actors I admire always have something to say, or a level of poetry, belief, activism or intelligence about what they do or how they feel.

I've had times in the past where I wanted to give up acting, get my head out of the arts because it was like my constitution couldn't deal with it. My job means I get judged on my looks; I get discriminated against because of my sex; I take on roles that are so two-dimensional... you can go mad trying to fill that third dimension.

On a really big budget movie you do chemistry reads, and you sort of hedge your bets a little bit more and make sure that these people get along. But on the low budget side of things, I have to trust my gut that when I cast these people, the various elements are going to play together.

I wanted to have a political career. I thought studying political science would be the best way to achieve it.

Our nation's military is effective because it is nonpartisan, relies heavily on science and technology, and takes the world as it is, not as it wishes it to be.

I don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting.