All history is defined by shifting modes of reality and time and how things change. That’s what I love about cinema. It changes in the moment.

So there's a choice that I made to tell stories that are still psychological melodramas about domestic issues. The challenge is to figure out how to make 10 films a career as a filmmaker, and that's a really challenging thing.

I try to keep feeling what's going on and try to use the camera, the actors and the design to enhance those feelings. There's something really emotionally direct and honest about how I put the material with the images. You hope that the strength of mise-en-scene comes from an honesty towards the material. You also hire really well.

To be a creative person and be a professional, as an artist you have to be able to withstand pain, rejection, and for some, a lot of bad feelings, but you have to be able to look through those.

I think parenting well is not so different than trying to consider how to be successful at any relationship. Like, how do you partner well? How do you collaborate well? How do we have this conversation well? You know, you're always trying to figure out what "well" means, so I think parenting is another version of that.

I think as a gay person, there was no way in my generation to not grow up with shame and a sense of being wrong. It was impossible to avoid. Externally, you might make choices that are very public and very open but internally that was a struggle.

By 1988, I was living in New York myself.