On Her Character’s Mothering Skills: “I think that she's misguided. I think that she's certainly not a selfless mother. I think that you have to think when a 12 year old, a 13 year old, so desperately wants a baby what she's looking for is the kind of unconditional love a child gives a mother and a mother gives a child. So clearly she doesn't have that. So obviously in that way she's certainly not a good mother.
Look, quite frankly, I have a 12 and a half year old daughter. If she got pregnant now or any time in the next I don't know how many years, several, there wouldn't be a whole lot of discussion as to whether or not she wanted to have her baby. But certainly I would handle it much differently. I think that was her mistake. Hopefully I won't have a daughter that feels the need for a baby. I mean, this is not a kid that wanted to act out and take drugs or have sex. This was a kid who just specifically who wanted a baby, and that's where the shaky mothering comes in I guess. Then how she handled it afterwards in that doctor’s office.. What does she say when he tells her, 'We had to perform a hysterectomy?' 'I'll never be a grandmother.' So right there, this is not a woman who's thinking about her child first, if at all. But I think that she has an arch and she desperately tries to learn a lesson even when it's really hard for her, like in that last scene with Jennifer Jason Leigh. She wants to go back and say, 'No, mother.' She tries.”
On How the Film Will Play in Certain Areas of the United States: “…It concerns me, but not in a negative way. It concerns me in a way that I need to do this movie. I need to do as much press as I possibly can for this movie. I think that this movie should be seen by church groups. Part of what I think is interesting is that whatever side of the coin that you're on, and I don't think that there is any left in this country anymore, but whatever side of the debate that you're on, the whole point is that everyone is allowed a space.
I think that what I perceive happening in this country is that the extreme right, who are now referred to as the Christian Right, and I don't know if that's fair or unfair, but I guess it is because they are so constantly taking the position as the only ones with the road to the big man up there. So they want to be called the Christian Right. What was my point? Those people to me seem so frightened, which means to me that they are unsure of their positioning. They're just too scared to let anyone else in, even for conversation. So I think that it would be great for them to see this movie because, in truth, if you don't just get hysterical and say, 'Oh, it's a pro-choice movie!' and run out of the room… It's not a pro-choice movie. It's not a pro-life movie….
You've got a movie where the pro-choice family gives their daughter no choice. The pro-life family murders. What seems to be the good mother, the kind of hippie painter, sweet and cute mother has no love for her daughter really. Mamma Sunshine is the perfect mother. It's unconditional love for children that no one wants to love. So it's so wrong to jump to the conclusion, which I feel that many of these people are so hysterical that that's all they do, jump to conclusions, who's right and who is wrong.”
