I do love the young adult novels as a form and genre, because it has a purity of intention and heart.

I try not to articulate ideas in the film once I've arrived on the plot and the characters. I believe that if I focus my attention with enough compassion and heart on those things, then other things will be revealed, and that's from the education that I've had from the novel.

I'm someone who can create critiques of individuals based on their economic history. That's one way I look at people in terms of one story that could be told purely in a Marxist construction.

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.

To me, honesty and the difficulty of honest communication are at the heart of both my life and my movies. The difficulty of being yourself.

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 think my movie addresses the struggles of communities facing class distinctions, which are timeless. The questions of how we live together and what we do for money are really the stuff of drama.