Television production is so insane. There's so many moving parts and flying pieces and you're desperate to make it cohesive and artistic and have something to say about the human condition that feels like it has value to its existence.

I'm very hard on myself when it comes to writing.

A poor white woman from the South is different than a poor black woman from the South, and has a completely different experience.

Race totally matters. Race totally changes your point of view. It's a different experience.

Silence Of The Lambs is a fantastic film. It's a horror film, and it's an incredibly well-told film that is about point of view in such a unique way. The way that film is shot, the way the eyelines are so close, if not directly into camera, betrays an intimacy with the characters and the audience.

As a horror movie fan, I was very obsessed with horror films. Still am. I love the genre. For me, horror films are opera, and they are... instead of consumption killing off the young lovers, it's Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. It is when the stakes are at their absolute largest in a story: whether somebody is going to live or die. In a way, it's just holding up a mirror to life.

The idea of suggesting that Hannibal Lecter - in the book, he has a sixth finger and red eyes, and so there is a devilry in Thomas Harris' presentation - so it felt like it was completely honest and appropriate for the character. And we often talk in the writers' room, "Okay, there is the Hannibal as the devil explanation of that plot point, but we also need to ground that in a reality that is answerable to the physics of the storytelling."