The Philadelphia Story is one of my favorite movies as is Bringing Up Baby.

I feel like network didnt want me. I was doing all these pilots and it never worked out. I was like network doesnt like me. Im going to go to cable where Im appreciated. Then it was funny I think I had to go to cable for network to appreciate me.

What happened with Mad Men was I had just had my child I was in a very literally and creatively fertile time in my life and I wasnt leaving the house much. So when Mad Men came along I was so excited to leave the house. Like I get to go do this beautiful thing.

Im always trying to get in water. It is the life source. Its extremely easy to dehydrate working 14 hours a day and on my feet all the time.

Florida surfers learn how to be great on mediocre waves. It trains you gives you endurance.

When I was a little girl I watched old movies maybe shot at Paramount Studios and the fact that every day I get to drive onto the lot and shoot a show that sometimes takes place in the 40s its very interesting.

I definitely gravitate towards things like vegetables chicken brown rice but I dont deprive myself of anything. If I want a Sprinkles cupcake Im having a Sprinkles cupcake. But Im not going to have one every day… you just have to have a sensible outlook on all of it.

Gratefulness is a double-edged sword. Because I think weve poured it into a feeling. And the batter of gratitude gets kind of stuck to the edges of the Williams Sonoma melamine mixing bowl. But gratefulness the act of being grateful is actually… a verb. Its an activity.

There is nothing like Southern hospitality. Its such a beautiful and genuine thing.

I have ice cream every week. Maybe twice. I live for ice cream but not just any ice cream. It has to be locally sourced and usually somewhere I can walk to.

My father loved biographies. He loved the true tales of interesting people that were shaping our culture. I get why he dug Vanity Fair. You feel smarter somehow for reading it.

I worked for 10 years before Mad Men and what was great is that when people saw my work I was just loving working so it wasnt about anything else than that.

Awards are very important for a show like Rectify. Were a small show were on a more obscure harder-to-find channel that is very supportive of creative and singular vision.

Rectify has been beautiful and emotional but grueling. In a beautiful way in the right way.

I love nothing more than a good rich dark chocolate. It exhilarates. It satisfies.

Its all about how can you take care of yourself when furthering your lifes goals and ambitions and purpose and whatever you choose – family career – to maintain a really balanced whole healthy outlook.

Unless you paddle for the wave youll never know if you could catch it. But once you do… Ride it as long as you can. Love as long as you can.

I grew up in a small Southern town kind of a counterculture to a small Southern mentality.

Travel is the only way to get empathy for other peoples mindsets – to know their struggles and what theyre drawn to.