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 think a lot of women who are celebrities and who are very beautiful have terrible problems with their men being very controlling. Women allow themselves to be dominated and controlled by men in all sorts of other ways that are very complicated, you know? I don't really see a lot of women engaging in discussions about the struggles and power relations with men and their lives, like their bosses, boyfriends, husbands, coworkers. I don't see that happening very often, whereas I see a lot of misogyny on the internet. I see a lot of hatred towards women and a lot of fear of women.

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 think women love glamour. I mean, not all women, but I think this is something that women share.

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

When men create movies about femme fatales, it really is always about how that female can destroy that male. It's not really about what's happening on the interior of that female.

Cinema can transform pain and trauma into something beautiful.