I live about 60 miles northwest of New York City, and whenever there's news of a big snowstorm coming, everyone runs for the store. The perishable items are usually the first things to go, which doesn't make sense because they perish.

What interests me more than dramatic heroics are the domestic things: How do people do laundry and find food when the world is about to end?

I had finished the first draft of 'Life As We Knew It' before Katrina hit, and it was startling to see things I wrote about actually happening in the real world.

If you allow fame to get the better of you, you become nuisance, a public nuisance, a nuisance as a friend, as a member of the family, a nuisance to yourself.

Kids in a home with grandparents are healthier.

That's the magic of filmmaking. When you are on sets 18-20 hours of the day for two-three months at a stretch, the unit becomes like family.

I wasn't being followed around by paparazzi all the time. I was able to be a kid and spend that time with my family and not grow up too quickly.