People, for reasons of kind of security, they tend to move towards people like themselves.

The praise helps on a deep level, which gives you the grounding that encourages you to trust yourself. On another level, each film is a risk, and the praise doesn't save you from that risk.

I actually feel that all drama has an element of comedy in it. A great deal of that I learned from writers like Chekhov who called his plays his comedy even when they touch on tragedy.

I can be incredibly angry with someone, I can be incredibly critical, but... I went through a period where I was reading a lot of memoirs of guards in holocausts and serial killers. I like to understand why people do bad things.

I think I tend to feel discomfort more when I anticipate or arrive upon moments in which I need to be careful. As a gay person, there's the fear of violence, and we're not making that up.

When working on and writing a film, I'm often more of a sponge than other times, aware of what's going on around me.

I've worked with non-professional actors, I've worked with movie stars, I've worked with kids, I've worked with older people, and I've found my job as a director is to cast them well and to understand what they need on set to bring the material to life.