The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we've all gone through that period. It's not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic.

Free time keeps me going. It's just something that's always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.

A person's sexuality is so much more than one word "gay." No one refers to anyone as just "hetero" because that doesn't say anything. Sexual identity is broader than a label.

I was petrified because all my friends would be going to Washington, DC, to protest. I was sixteen, and I was like, "I don't think I'll be going with you guys," just because I was scared. Then you saw the news, and cops - not students in schools with guns - cops are killing sixteen year old protesters on the news. To me that was more horrifying, to have the authority figures actually killing people on the evening news, than to have another student firing a gun.

Yeah, I try to be really calm.

You're following your track, the story, your only plan, your map for the audience, and all the other stuff is, like, the fun stuff: the costumes, the locations, the set-dressing and the actors. They can all be variable as you like if you stick - however roughly - to the path.

Even when you're making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it's part of my dramatic viewpoint. I'm not sure why exactly.