What has your own experience as a woman in Hollywood been like?

"It would be insincere to say I've had all this trouble. I've been very lucky to work with feminists: the MADtv staff was full of gentle male comedians, I worked with Amy Poehler at Parks and Rec, Paul Feig is such a feminist. I think all of my problems are more internal. I've been trying to make an effort to stop apologizing for my ideas. I see men who will pitch ideas and make statements with such confidence, even when they're absolutely wrong. That's hard for me! So I'm balancing, as a woman, stating my opinion and doing it in a confident way."

Obviously a big question of late is how can we get more women and diversity both on-screen and in writer's rooms. If you had a magic solution, what would it be?

"I think it’s up to writers and show runners to look outside their wheelhouse. Like, for me: I'm a woman, so I've been fighting for women and trying to bring more people like me into writer's rooms and on the projects I'm working on. But now I see that I need to fight for diversity as well, even though that hasn't been my plight. I think everyone in this business needs to look outside their own world and seriously think about how they individually can be more inclusive."

There was a lot of criticism that Leslie Jones' character was the only non-scientist Ghostbuster, and that her easily-spooked character played into some long-standing stereotypes of Black people in scary movies. What’s your response to those critiques?

"I understand it. But listen, everything came from a good place. When I wrote that part, I originally pictured Melissa, because nothing would be funnier to me than Melissa McCarthy as an MTA worker getting fed up with these kooky scientists. And her getting spooked by ghosts and a mannequin chasing her? So funny. In fact, if you read the very first draft, you could tell I had Melissa in mind. But Paul said it actually felt too much like her character from The Heat. He's a really big fan of Leslie, so he envisioned this for her. He just thought she would be the perfect fourth Ghostbuster, this great new powerhouse energy. The criticisms made me sad, because of course I want there to be more Black female scientists. That's not the way we intended it."

Each of these actresses are hilarious and super talented. Whose performance surprised you the most?

"Melissa. I just haven't seen this side of her in a movie before and I really loved it. She was so earnest and showed so much heart. It was so real, and I bought it!"

How do you get in the right mind-set, creatively, to bring to life something that's part funny, part spooky?

"I went to New York for a couple of days and walked around Columbia and the library, which was fun. And then, I headed to my old apartment, which I use as an office. I haven't really decorated it, so there's just one chair, and I started writing in October so there were some old Halloween decorations hanging around. So I wrote most of the script in one single chair with a skeleton hanging over it while listening to the scores from horror movies like Alien and 1408. I was like Well, this is a very strange place. But for Ghostbusters, it felt pretty...well...perfect."

With reporting by Vanessa Golembewski.