For me, the dumbest rule is that you can't chew gum in school. For some reason, chewing gum for me gets my brain going.

Instruments fascinate me because they're completely awkward. When I picked up a guitar for the first time I was like, "What is this?" because it's so foreign and unknown.

I only write about stuff I know. I don't have a lot of experience with boys and stuff so I write a lot of songs about interesting and strange subjects that people wouldn't write songs about.

We need to have points of view from lots of different types of people. People who have different backgrounds, different parts of the world, who maybe perceive gender differently. We're in this time where we have social media, we have the ability to share so much, that I think that we need to create more space and more opportunity for people that are just outside of the typical cliched binary roles.

In the past I've been very into the falling part, very into the swimming in the dark, deep emotional water. 'Rampart' I really went into it and it took me three times as long to get out of that depression as it did to just do the scenes. I had to learn to give it my all and then go home and laugh.

I had a tough time fitting in, as I guess most kids do. I felt like school was kind of a grand opportunity to figure yourself out and to figure out what you wanted.

One of the reasons I love making movies is because it's an opportunity to share with the world a different way of being or a different way of living or seeing the world. If it's something you've already seen before, if I have too many reference points for it, then it's not exciting for me to make.