American culture is very good at interpersonal relationships and people skills, whereas we're incredibly adept at academics and straightforward 19th-century Victorian education.

I support equal rights and equal dignity for all.

Everyone's parents were famous actors at my school, pretty much! I think I went to school with Paris Hilton when I was three. That's what L.A. is, though - it's an industry town. You go to school with kids and you think, 'Well that's normal, they make movies.'

My dad says that when I was two or three I used to go out dressed as a different character every day. I remember thinking it was perfectly normal to wear different coloured shoes and carry a pink umbrella. But now I've got a goddaughter of that age; I realise it's not normal at all.

The captain thing was really an honor, and it was really flattering for me. It was really something that I didn't expect, and I would say that was the highlight of my career so far, being elected captain by my peers.

It's a life choice to be a girl chef, as it is to be a boy chef. It feels pretty natural to me. It's a full-time, full-scale, full physical job, and a lot of times, it can take the place of kids and family. To be in this career is much more difficult for a woman to have a family, marriage - whatever that means. It's not a 9-5 job.

A leader's job is not to do the work for others, it's to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible.

I went to Parsons. American sportswear was my education, and that is what is important to me.