I think since I did Monster I really started understanding how hard it is for first time directors. I think there's a lot of great stories out there, but it's high risk.

What I know in my heart is that women and girls on the ground are powerful and that they are leaders.

I treat my relationships like marriages. The ceremony isn't that important to me.

Well, life is dark. We live in a very dark world. When they call them "dark films" it annoys me, because they're very real stories. They're stories I have seen or experienced or witnessed, and coming from that place, that is the hope of humanity.

I have OCD, which is not fun. I have to be incredibly tidy and organized or it messes with my mind and switches off on me.

I'd be unbelievably wrong to say there isn't such a thing as the right place, right time-luck.

The idea of stuff just hanging in my closet and not being used - there's a little bit of the African in me that gets bothered by that [somewhat].