This is a good thing to say to film students. If there's a story point that you don't feel right about, that there's a question you have - "Does it really make sense?" Or, "Is that plausible? Is it implausible? Is it set up?" Or whatever. Go at it. Don't let it go. If there's a question in your mind, you're probably right. You probably do need to work on it and think about it more.

Some people say talent is energy and that's a very interesting way of thinking about it. In other words, people with talent have a lot of energy.

I like that I've been through things, that when something happens, it resonates with something that already happened. It's not that things like loss are more or less painful. But they're deeper. I find that fascinating.

And if there's anything movies can do in a way that I just love, and I love as an audience is, "Show me something I don't know about. Show me something I haven't seen."

I had never met an actress or an actor when I thought that I might like to be one. I had never been around people in show business or from the theater or from movies or anything. And I say that as an encouragement, I don't know some people who want to be doing what I'm doing or be involved in film. You don't have to be from it to get interested and get involved. I certainly wasn't.

It used to be the one or the other, right? You were the 'bad girl' or the 'good girl' or the 'bad mother' or the 'good mother,' 'the horrible businesswoman who eschewed her children' or 'the earth mother who was happy to be at home baking pies,' all of that stuff that we sort of knew was a lie.

We're not all evil or all good, and we all make mistakes to one degree or another.