If I don't have to think about the commercial aspect of it, then I feel like I'm going to make better films.

I just really feel so grateful to Sundance because I've always been an artist and I've never been able to make a living at being an artist until Sundance.

I'd always wanted to work in television once I found out that they started to hire independent filmmakers to direct.

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 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.

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.

So many people have said this, but it's true: 95 percent of what I do as a director is casting and getting people who can bear the load of what you're asking them to do and creating this emotionally safe environment.