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.

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.

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.

I still think that being thrown in a very competitive environment where you really have to see what you are made of - certainly when you come out of nowhere - was good for me.

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.

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.

If someone already knows you from being in the trenches with you on this TV schedules, and then you have a little bit more time, it's a treat for them, as well, because they can give you more.