That sort of detailed filmmaking is one, hard to do and not have it be pretentious, and two, have it tell the story, which is what you're taught, that cinema is the language of images and you really should be able to make a film with no dialogue and tell a story.

[As a producer] [Big Little Lies] is the stories of women that I know, and it was a way in which we could go to other women and say, "Here's a great role. There's five great roles here. They're all complicated. They all deserve to be told, and are you interested?" And that is rare.

I always wanted to get married with just candles! I think candlelight is the most beautiful light there is and there's something very spiritual about it.

You look at somebody's work as an actor and you can see their emotional life being fed into it and you can kind of feel them through it.

I love just sitting quietly meditating. With an hour free, it depends. I love getting down on the floor and playing with my kids.

Refuse to let your circumstances make you bitter. Do what you must to make them better.

You're either going to walk through life and experience it fully or you're going to be a voyeur. And I'm not a voyeur.