I was very ambitious at a young age. When I was six, I would tell everybody that I wanted to be an authoress.

It's interesting that gay men and young women have been the twin engines of the Bettie [Page] cult.

I'm not trying to make the world a better place.

Growing up, I was lucky that my dad was never out of work. I was very fortunate in one way: that I never experienced real hardship, because my dad is this real dynamo. He was always working, so I had a sense of the ups and downs and endless disappointments, but at the same time I was never worried that we couldn't eat or pay the bills.

I just don't think I'm an ideological filmmaker in any way. I don't know how anyone could see anything I've done and see that.

People make films about all kinds of relationships, but they won't do these extremely intense platonic love affairs that happen between young girls. In a way they are more intense than anything else you ever have, and that's what I wanted to make a film about, though it was in the context of a horror film.

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.