It was a very emotional dinner... Everyone shared personal stories about her and gave her words of encouragement and inspiration. Everyone tried to remain positive.

There's been a slow death in a way. On the positive side, there are films getting into the Academy Awards that wouldn't have, but on the negative side, financiers are now dominant and making all the decisions. I can't count the ways a director's vision is compromised.

Let's not dismiss or attack individual ideas as being inadequate before we have had a chance to assess their positive effect as part of a whole solution.

I'm positive and I smile a lot, and I'm kind of a banana, but serious work just seems to find me, so I'm not going to argue with it.

So many reality shows are scripted and create this fake drama, and it's a bunch of bull. We wanted to do something real and something wholesome and something that's focused on positive family values.