We all have to embrace the idea not to be worried about there being other women in the room. Gay men work with such solidarity.

In a way, after you're done directing there is a sense of amnesia that washes over you, you can't exactly remember how you did things. It's a zone, just like an athlete, when they can't remember what they did, but somehow got it done.

The script is the musical score, and everyone has to play off that score. Even I have to interpret it. The producers are there to eliminate obstacles to that interpretation.

Writing is acting in the sense that you're imagining and inhabiting another. In the book I was trying to get at the root of what true acting is.

I think one of the great joys of being a writer is you can transcend everything, even your own sex, what century you live in, and how you think. I found it quite natural to think as a male because I actually think that as a female, one often thinks in the mind of a male in terms of eroticism. You think about what the other person feels. So it's not that hard to imagine being that person.

I have a great drive to make things and sometimes I forget to slow down a little.

I never had any desire to become a well-known actress.