Before adolescence I had an incredible voice. Like when I was 12, 13, 14 - I was taking acting classes, I was painting, I was making music, I was taking photographs. I was kind of exploding creatively, and then something about adolescence really just ground that out of me.

In the collaborative process, you create a real intimacy; everybody ends up sharing personal stories and personal observations and their philosophies, their psychological side. By the time you get to set, it just creates such a sense of trust and intimacy between the director and the actors. It's really, really great.

I'm drawn again and again to relationships between people who really, really want to connect and just can't get out of their own way to do it.

For me, I want to see diversity in storytelling sources because we live in a very diverse society, and the stories are for the whole society. That's really important. For me, as a female filmmaker, when I was out on the festival circuit on 2006, I felt like such a freaking anomaly - an oddity.

I'd love for there to be a situation - a world in which that's just not even a question anymore. We are all filmmakers - different stripes, genders, sexual orientations, colors - and our work can be taken on its own terms. I'm really looking forward to that day.

I feel like this is the way I was meant to interact with acting. Which is as a director, and helping, working with actors to find their way. Facilitating their performances is so satisfying for me.

The first time I ever intersected with the quote unquote industry or Hollywood or being given a paid job as a director all came because of the reputation I got coming out of Sundance as a veteran Sundance filmmaker.