It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

The number of opera houses around the world and the high attendance rates show that opera an art form that is more popular than ever.

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

With Cold Sassy Tree having its first production, I saw no necessity to do anything other than produce it with the correct setting.

There were movies that always made me want to be a director. You see brilliant scenes and the way the emotions were handled. I thought, I'd really like to do that.

In silent movies, they tended to put the camera down, and everybody walked in front of it and acted, and then they all walked off. Cutting was quite infrequent.

When we were trying to get the money together for the film, one reason that was consistently given for not investing in it was that everyone kept saying no one could direct it well enough to entertain an audience for 100 minutes essentially watching three people chatting in the kitchen.