I feel that the power that storytelling has to change people, to bring them together, to have that cathartic sort of experience, is something that definitely has helped my life be worthwhile and better.

Something I was adamant about was that the movie [Everybody Lovess Somebody] wouldn't end with, oh, marriage saved [the main character]. They're married and she's OK. I was very pushing on having the ending be that she made an inner growth of healing so that she can then have the ability and the space to love and be loved by someone else, and that love is open-ended and doesn't mean they're going to get married tomorrow and all her problems are solved.

I also have to be careful of what it says about women. I get a lot of scripts that only talk about women's appearances and what they look like. I think we're tired of having to meet this standard and not being asked what our talents or abilities are.

I guess that storytelling would be for me to keep making art that touches people in a way that nothing else can.

I should have asked for credit - but he has no idea how amazing it is that a character that was written as a boy can be equally written for a girl. It's like you said, just write a character as if it were a man, and then turn it and make it into a woman. It's like, we're human beings, after all.

Our society really needs to take a better look at what we're selling, because I think women being empowered will be as beneficial to men as it is to us.

This movie [Everybody Loves Somebody] is as much for the general market as it is for Latino audiences. That's a really exciting prospect.