NYU Film School was the way to learn about film, to be exposed to film, to go to repertory houses, to be exposed to New York and see films. I would go to the library and see one, two or three movies a day.

I was only driven to be the best and it was very disheartening sometimes that it took me so long to start getting my voice heard. That certainly started with television, but it was never because of where I came from, it was because people saw something in me.

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.

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.

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

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.

If you can make the day, you can do whatever you want.