I've been clawing my way to directing since I was a kid.

On some kind of unspoken, deep, deep level, I think we [with Ryan Murphy] have an aesthetic that we both understand or connect to. It's not that we see the world in the same way because we have very different points of view, but we're both visual stylists.

It's a great asset to you, on your first film, to bring some people with you from the television world because they understand the speed that you have to work with to get your grand ideas down.

Ryan Murphy just gives new people a shot, and it takes a lot of confidence and generosity to do that.

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.

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.