Some actors can draw from their own darkness.

When people see the conventions, they think they're going to get the straightforward genre - I don't give them that and they get mad. People see that and they think I don't understand the conventions because I'm not a good filmmaker.

If you have had some taste of success, it's extremely addicting. I think the withdrawal from that is what's most devastating. I don't think it's the success that kills people, it's the withdrawal.

It's hard when your first thing is something everyone loves. Actually, that never happened to me. I was lucky that my first film, which is actually the best reviewed of all my films, didn't have that success.

I think morale is the hardest part, not comparing yourself to someone else. I think everyone compares themselves to someone more successful than they are. Everyone does it. You have to embrace your own rocky path.

I remember being really interested in the sad parts of Los Angeles, of which there are many, and knowing we weren't up in the citadel on the hill, but we also weren't on the bottom. I was very interested in the poetry of failure as a child.

There's no need to be tragic or destroy yourself or jump off a cliff. That's no longer the paradigm I wish to follow, or that anyone should follow. It is not necessary to be tragic. It's bullshit that women can't have it all. Why not? Other people do.