Once your film is done, you can't explain to people what something was supposed to be. You can't give them footnotes. It all has to be there.

I love the freedom of writing and then I love the realization of directing. I can't favor one or the other. I enjoy both parts of the process.

I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it. I went to business school because in the '80, it was the thing to do. I thought that marketing was a way to be creative in business, but quickly learned all creative stuff happens at the ad agency.

Writing is really freeing because it's the only part of the process where it's just you and the characters and you are by yourself in a room and you can just hash it out. There are no limitations.

What I love in working on film is just working with actors. It's one thing to write scenes alone over a keyboard and to imagine the actions and reactions in your head, but it's a completely other thing to hear actors speaking your words, to see their bodies bringing the fullness of emotion, need, desire and pain to life right in front of you. It's amazing.

I very much related to the idea of sexual identity and how it doesn't have to be black and white. When I first came out, there would be butch people in baseball caps, and that wasn't me, and then there were girls in heels and dresses, and that didn't feel like that was me either. But after a while I learned there's a lot of ground in between.

Once your film is done, you can't explain to people what something was supposed to be. You can't give them footnotes. It all has to be there.