I always want to make films. I think of it as a great opportunity to comment on the world in which we live. Perhaps just because I just came off "The Hurt Locker" (2008) and I'm thinking of the war and I think it's a deplorable situation. It's a great medium in which to speak about that. This is a war that cannot be won, why are we sending troops over there? Well, the only medium I have, the only opportunity I have, is to use film. There will always be issues I care about.

I thrive on production. It feels very much like a natural environment for me.

Am I a 'woman of action'? I don't think of myself that way.

I did a pilot for Anything But Love in 1988 that didn't sell.

I need to have my hands on the DNA of a film.

There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible.

Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.