I would get very frustrated reading scripts that were bilingual but maybe not bicultural.

I know that [Sunday is the day you spend with your family] is a tradition that I want to keep alive and I also want to share.

I've been transformed by stories, and I think that storytelling is definitely sacred. I take it very seriously because my life has been changed, whether it was a movie, a play, a piece of writing, poetry, a painting.

The patriarchal society has made women believe, first of all, you're only valid and valuable when you're young.

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.

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.

In the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody], the sister tells my character, "No, don't you want to be with someone?" I think the family - especially in this movie - they know that the reason that Clara doesn't want to have an emotional, intimate relationship is more because she was hurt so badly from heartbreak that she's then being closed off and cynical.