When I stepped into the Lifetime role in 2010, I did a listening tour of what was going on for women in this country. There was such a parallel in Hollywood with women talking about how there are stories that are not getting made and that talented young women are not getting the opportunity to direct and write.

The best advice I give to young people starting out is choose your boss. Regardless of gender, I think it is important to have someone who supports you and lets you take risks without fear of failure.

You had a generation of women, of which I'm part, where it was a stigma to be associated with feminism; there was a backlash. Now you have a generation that is clearly embracing feminism because, at the end of the day, the definition of feminism is just equality.

There is a lot of content out there for the female demographic.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

I play Hopkins' daughter. Brad Pitt plays Death. He's a very-good looking Death. With him, dying isn't so bad.

Even more than dying itself, I'm scared of the horror-movie changes that happen to the human body as it ages. I think of it as a sort of haunted-house effect, living inside a crumbling, creaking structure that is full of ghosts and will, some day, fall down.

Grief is a room without doors - but somehow, with its tinsel and cliches, Christmas finds a way in.