You know what really grinds my gears. Jennifer Lee went back to school in her 30s to become a screenwriter. Alluvasudden…FROZEN….Alluvasudden….WRINKLE…. I mean…

::sigh::

I love hearing stories like that, don’t you?

We got to interview this amazing #girlboss during our epic trip for Wrinkle (which I generally refer to as my Oprah trip lol) and here are a few excerpts and quotes from her that stood out for me. I hope they resonate with you as well.

On adapting a book into a movie

Well, it took four years, if that answers the question. It was a challenge but it was one…. Like I wasn’t trying to do the book, adapting it for the film, it was very much clear that like, I don’t want to try to be the book. But showing our love for the book, showing sort of how much inspiration there is in the book. And ow strong the journey is in the book. I could stay true to that, then we might have a chance of finally getting it made.

On her favorite lines

Oh god. Yeah, wild nights in my glory.

I give you your flaws.

There are so many. I’m sorry, but there’s so many that I have to go to – like, we would take like a whole paragraph and have to reduce it to a sentence…..And like Mrs. Which says to Meg at one point, and I thought this was in the book, where she says, “Do you know all of the events that had to occur in the universe to create you exactly as you are?” And I was like, oh, that’s not in the book, that’s just what the book gave me.

What inspired you to be a storyteller?

I came to it kind of late. But I think, I would say, I’d say it’s my job, I would just about look for the signs in your life. Because when I was little I was drawing all the time. I love Disney, I thought maybe, oh, I could be an animator. But I wasn’t a good enough artist. But I was always drawing. And then I was always writing things but they would gel. But it was like, there’s something inside, I was running sagas in my head. I would have these like epic journeys going on at night, to fall asleep. And one day I wrote a scene down.

I overheard something and I just started writing it. And I turned it into a scene. And I went, oh my god. Like this is the thing that I’ve been looking for, was the kind of writing that film is. What you can see, what you can hear, and what you can say. And like the reducing it that way, having those limitations, did something. And I had already been a visual artist so I knew there was – I was a visual thinker. But I was 30 when I went to film school. And I’d had a whole decade in book publishing. So for me I came to it late. But it was certainly the signs of saying, Oh, I was drawing as a kid but if I look back, I was drawing stories.

On her message to her daughter through her work

Well, I think the biggest thing for me, and you know, I grew up a kid who didn’t think much of herself. I had very little self esteem. And spent a lot of time criticizing myself. And a lot of time thinking I couldn’t, that I wasn’t good enough to do things. And, because I would look at others and think, this is what you have to be, is that. Or that….

And I have a daughter now who is a teenager. She’s 14 and a half. But she has a confidence I didn’t have. And she doesn’t have a blind confidence, though. She has a confidence where she could take criticism, where she can look and say, that’s not my strength but I’m inspired to do this. And if films like FROZEN and WRINKLE continue to help her do that. So that she has no – like they say she’s a participant. She has no problem just going for something and with no expectation of success. She just wants to be a part of it.

On her daughter’s future

…I hope that doesn’t change as high school bears down on her more and more. But I think it’s that, it’s saying, participate in the world, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be a part of it, and be willing to try and be open. And I think of all she might be capable of doing. It won’t take her till she’s 30 to know what she wanted to do – I think I’d be a happy mom.