I think it's true that the more sanitized a person is, you can't really relate to that person.

When I was just five years old, I loved the scary layer and the symbolical power of the red cloak. I made my mom make me that red cloak, and I had to wear it on Halloween, two years in a row.

I worked for 20 directors as a production designer, most male. I was on the set to witness firsthand a range of sometimes atrocious emotions - well-documented firings, yellings, fights between directors and actors, hookers, abusive things, budget overages, lack of preparation. A man gets a standing ovation for crying because he's so sensitive, but a woman is shamed.

Since I was a little kid, I did like fairy tale. I did dress up like Little Red Riding Hood. My mom had to make me a cape.

If a scene doesn't work on three levels - it's not advancing the story, the characters, and telling me something new - then put it in the trash.

I just wrote a really cool script. It's called "One Track Mind." It's an origin story about the most successful and the most foul-mouthed, outrageous songwriter in history.

I can go back to my very first movie, Thirteen, and think about that exact moment when I saw Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood do their chemistry read audition together. It just came alive. I was filming it with a video camera and I was like, "I know I can make a good movie now."