Even if someone doesn't look like you or you don't know people like this in your real life, you get to know them and you get to see their humanity and you get to empathize with them. Our hope is that through empathy that can spark change. We hope people start talking to each other and our show sparks conversation because we need to start talking to each other, not at each other.

My parents are amazing. When I said I wanted to go into film, they didn't understand it, but they were incredibly supportive. But growing up, I absolutely did have that feeling of, "Wow, somebody just gave me up." That was infused in The Secret Life of Bees too - the protagonist wanting unconditional love from her dead but much-imagined mother.

I'm very shy. But as a director and especially a female director, absolutely: How I used to walk on the court is how I walk on set. And I have to - I mean, I'm controlling 150, 200 people, and everything is on me.

I write to music, and Nina Simone is always on my playlist to write to. I mean, shes inspiring. She's truthful and real and raw.

Sports also teaches you that it's about the team, and the better your teammates are, the better they make you.

Be passionate about your [movie] material, because you're going to have to overcome a lot of "No's," and it's that passion that fuels the fight.

I write to music, so every script I have has its own playlist. Music just opens me up to the emotions that I'm writing.