I really loved working on 'Laguna Beach,' and I'd do it all over again. I'm one of the luckiest kids in the world, but I thought it was going to be a documentary about kids in high school, and they exaggerated all this drama. When it came out, it was this weird thing. People feel that they know you.

I can't stand on a podium and beat my chest saying I'm the best. I just think I've been the luckiest of all. Yes, I'm talented. The movies that I've chosen and the way they've fared have also helped. I've always done films I would love to watch. I have stayed away from films which I thought were depressing.

The luckiest person in the world is somebody who is born into a small, shabby-genteel town on a major railway connection with 24,000 souls and a bird sanctuary and whose grandfather owns a farm and whose father owns a business -whose family is mildly prosperous but not rich, which means you can leave the town.

I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And I was. I was growing up middle-class in a time when growing up middle-class in America meant there would be jobs for my parents, good schools for me to prepare myself for a career, and, if I worked hard and played by the rules, a chance for me to do anything I wanted.

The one thing I really lucked out on is that all through my teenage years, when my sister was a lifeguard and everyone I knew was out in the sun all day - I was in the theater. Everyone called me Casper because I never had a tan, and everyone else was tan all the time. I think that was the luckiest thing of my life.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

I always wanted to be a zookeeper when I was growing up, and I've wound up a zookeeper! I've been working with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years! I'm the luckiest old broad on two feet because my life is divided absolutely in half - half animals and half show business. You can't ask for better than two things you love the most.

For my books of nonfiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. I've been a Yankees and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades, so I wrote 'Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man.' It's more the story of his great courage than of his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges, and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig.

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