I've always known that I've wanted to write, but I always saw myself doing that in the context of something other than film, so it was a really beautiful and kind of perfect moment in my life when I realized that I could combine this idea of wanting to write and tell my own stories with the environment I had grown up in and knew well - that I could make film as opposed to writing being a departure from what I knew.

It's not that I don't want to become famous or that I'm obsessed by my work as an actress, but it's all about not limiting myself, such as putting myself in a little jail that I can escape from.

I am aware that I've generally been more attracted to introspective roles, but it's sort of bizarre, because it's the opposite of who I am in many ways. I think I'm quite an extroverted, loud person. So it interests me that that's sort of the place that I go all quiet, is when I'm onscreen. It's a bit strange.

I enjoy doing my more intimate and less commercial pictures and also I enjoy directing.

We're in this space right now where things are very precarious for women and things in the States are so terrifying. There are so many rollbacks of rights women have gained - and it can happen quickly, more quickly than we think. I think it would be good for us to think back and ahead to protect the space we're in.

I feel like we want women to be simpler, less complex, so we project a lot of versions of simplicity onto them to fit that.

I've always known that I've wanted to write, but I always saw myself doing that in the context of something other than film, so it was a really beautiful and kind of perfect moment in my life when I realized that I could combine this idea of wanting to write and tell my own stories with the environment I had grown up in and knew well - that I could make film as opposed to writing being a departure from what I knew.