I look at Woody Allen's prolific career of 30 or 40 films, and I'm watching the clock. I'd love to work at a clip of a film a year. We don't get the benefit of the doubt, particularly black women. We're presumed incompetent, whereas a white male is assumed competent until proven otherwise. They just think the guy in the ball hat and the T-shirt over the thermal has got it, whether he's got it or not. For buzzy first films by a white male, the trajectory is a 90-degree angle. For us, it's a 30-degree angle.

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.

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.

Ultimately, the people [who] are going to help you make your film are the people who believe in you and believe in the story. And as long as you stick to your guns, hopefully what you come out with will be what you imagined.

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.

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.

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.