For all the boredom the straight life brings, it's not too bad.

A lot of times, you're not necessarily off the page because you haven't been able to take the time to prepare a character. It's very easy to find even great actors reading it more like a reading. Things aren't really coming alive yet, even though you know they will.

Casting the locals is my primary concern because all the other things you assume will be manageable.

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.

And Later I Thought, I Can't Think How Anyone Can Become a Director Without Learning the Craft of Cinematography.

My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life, but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar.

The biopic also wasn't a form that I necessarily believed in, because you can never really get it right, you know? It's also a form that's very popular - the straight-ahead biopic.