Are you ready for The OA to follow in the footsteps of a show like Stranger Things?
I loved that show, the episodes were so delicious. It really hadn’t occurred to me [The OA] would reach that audience [via Netflix]! Who knows what that means when you just drop it on an international audience.

You started writing scripts largely to create parts that weren’t there for women. Do you think Hollywood has moved on enough?
I think there’s still some way to go. Part of the problem is putting your finger on it. There’s a version of feminism that’s consumerism in a different guise or that doesn’t make you feel liberated. We’re still struggling to articulate what it feels like to be free as a woman and all the ways we’re held back. It isn’t just rebooting a male franchise and putting a woman in the lead, but that’s a start. It’d be great fun to write with a woman. There are stories that spring from a place of exploring the unexplored terrain of the feminine. I just read the [Elena] Ferrante book series and she seems to be giving landscape to a space that women have long felt but had difficulty articulating.

You’ve previously said you never wanted to reach 40, wake up and feel like you hadn’t been courageous. Do you feel you’ve lived courageously thus far?
I do feel like I did the right thing in leaving a job at an investment bank because it feels like the creativity of people was being harnessed to make them a lot more money. I’m trying to be brave. I feel like with The OA we bit off a lot more than we thought we could chew. There’s a moment in [episode] five that’s very risky. It’s like entering into the wildness where there are no constraints. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to acting: it’s an invitation to break free of yourself, the constraints of yourself, of who knows you and what they’ve said about you.

How else do you tap into that wildness?
Any time I get to explore. I don’t just mean travelling but even going to a neighbourhood in a city you’ve never been to before. Wierdly, the other way to experience this wildness is through heartbreak – in the aftermath of having my heart broken my senses become wildly alive. You’ve been living in concert with another human being and then suddenly you’re on your own again and you’re navigating life differently. Colour is sharper, music is more intense.

Where’s on your travel bucket list?
I’d love to go to Russia. I’ve heard about this railway line off the Trans Siberian Express that goes into the wilderness in the North. But I’m also dying to go to Japan. The fashion, the storytelling, the imagination and the respect for wisdom and older people. I’m so curious about it.

We’re in the middle of the festive period, what do you love the most about it?
The best thing about the holidays is the feeling you can get away with not looking at your phone for 72 hours and being with family and watching Christmas films. I know it’s not a traditional Christmas film but I love Edward Scissorhands. There’s that fantastic scene where he’s ice-sculpting and Winona [Ryder] is twirling in the shavings of ice. I love that idea of an unusual creature coming to the suburban landscape. My parents will come to LA, which will be interesting because coming from Chicago, we don’t know what it means to get a Christmas tree and have cocoa when it’s 75 degrees (24°C) outside.

Are you the type of person who sets goals or aspirations for the New Year?
I feel a great desire to become a better storyteller and actor. Every time I act it feels like the first time and I’m just as bewildered and terrified. I can’t think too much beyond that, it’s not like I look around and think, ‘I want that job or want to be there’. Only unhappiness can come from that. I think we’re all trained with this idea that there’s a thing we could finally get that would make us happy. But it doesn’t work like that. You can be unhappy in any situation. You usually realise that as you stumble through your 20s there’s not a secret room that once you’re there you suddenly feel serenity. There’s nothing that will make you OK outside of you figuring out how to make yourself OK.

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