I applied [to film school] figuring, "I need to find some structure for myself. I need to find a way to figure out what kind of filmmaker I want to be." And that is what film school provides you with. It'll teach you the basics of how a production works and the technical side of how to put everything together, but you could also learn that by working on film sets.

I spent a year and a half working for an art fair. I worked as a post-production assistant for a documentary film company for a while. Then I worked at the Apple store because I wanted a discount to be able to buy new gear to edit things while I was figuring out whether or not I wanted to go to film school. Those were the main things.

I always knew I wanted to make films, but just didn't quite know how to start. I was making little short films with my friends but I wasn't quite sure how to put those pieces together for myself.

I'd like them [people] to leave thinking about the challenges women face in the workforce, but more importantly to really feel the emotional highs and lows of those challenges - to have really experienced that unsettling place where ambition crosses over into something else entirely.

Creating a portrait of a female point of view in an environment that we've pretty much exclusively understood through a male perspective - "Wall Street," "Wolf of Wall Street," "Arbitrage" - etc. was beyond exciting for me. It felt downright necessary. And I felt really inspired by Alysia Reiner and Sarah Megan Thomas' agenda in telling these types of unique, feminist stories. [Both of them produced and acted in "Equity."]

I applied [to film school] figuring, "I need to find some structure for myself. I need to find a way to figure out what kind of filmmaker I want to be." And that is what film school provides you with. It'll teach you the basics of how a production works and the technical side of how to put everything together, but you could also learn that by working on film sets.

When I got into film school, it really formed a sense of who I am and my sense of feeling like an outsider. If there was some greater purpose to do this, it would be so that future generations - my kids or my sister's kids - would grow up seeing themselves in their media culture in a way that I didn't. If The Mindy Project or Master of None were on when I was growing up, I wonder if I would be interested in doing this at all