No matter what I do, all people talk about is production design, whether it's not good enough or it is good enough. And I'm thinking: This is because my content makes people uncomfortable. It's a way for people to not talk about the content.

I base everything on my own life experiences as a female. I start from there, and then I look for characters and settings that I think are cinematic, where I can use symbols and imagery to tell a story.

I see being a woman in the world as a social problem. That's very urgently problematic in terms of it still being a man's world, and women's identities still being shaped by the way men look at them, and the way men can control what kinds of opportunities they can get based on how desirable the men find them, or how compliant. I don't think that's really changed a lot.

What I like about the '60s movies was that they were about women. They were telling women's stories. I think a lot of movies don't tell women's stories anymore.

I've always loved movies dealing with the terror of a woman who doesn't really know her husband and finds out that he's a monster. It's one of my favorite plots.

Plenty of women say, "I'm just going to make myself into a sex object." But they often can't stay afloat doing that. They can't maintain their sanity. Some women can, but many cannot. They think they can, but self-objectification is really dangerous.

Men's requirements of women are impossible and ridiculous and so destructive.