I really think the biopic thing so rarely works, because peoples lives dont have a dramatic shape that can be satisfying.

When it comes to two of the big social earthquakes in the last fifty years - which are the gay movement and the women's movement - I think there is a direct line from Kinsey to those.

I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. 'Richard Pryor,' I wrote for - gosh - over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that. We're still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it's like, 'God, five years have gone by.

Problems emerge and some people try to sweep them under the rug.

There's nothing quite as good as folding up into a book and shutting the world outside.If I pick the right one I can be beautiful, or fall in love, or live happily ever after. Maybe even all three.

In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids.

I wanted to make connections between Whale's past and present.