To me film school was film history because there weren't a lot of books out there that I had access to.

Musicals and horror films can be very non-verbal and very pure cinema with movement. The camera is justified in being a character. It can really move and tell a story, and literally direct you to look here or there.

At some point, you have an opportunity to not be a first-time filmmaker anymore. You can embrace the genre and show the world how you can tell stories on a bigger scale.

There are the relationships you make. All of the friends I made in grad school are the closest ones that I have.

I'm really grateful to Ryan Murphy for so much because he's fearless. He's so confident. He has a very unusual and unique way of seeing the world sometimes, and he's somehow able to translate that into entertainment for the masses, at the right time in pop culture.

Being exposed to the Ryan Murphy machine, it is very much a personal extension of him. So, if I can learn from that and tell longer stories that are quite personal, and balance that out with features, then that would be the ultimate dream.

The fun of directing for me, other than working with the actors, is trying to extract those ideas that you have in your head and make them real.