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 think that the idea of family is a very powerful and influential and disjointed thing that will always captivate me.

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.

There is no point trying to figure out who is guilty or not at un-balancing the planet. I think we need to figure out and solve the problems together and not isolate from each other.

The ways in which people are damaged are the ways in which they're strong. It's what makes people interesting - what they've overcome and how, and what they haven't and how that's become a good thing. Almost everyone's life is both a gorgeous story and a tragedy. I think being alive is really, really hard, and I'm constantly stunned and amazed by people who make it interesting and beautiful.

So I decided to make a film about our need to tell stories, to own our stories, to understand them, and to have them heard.

I think what I've learned most from being an actress is that there's no method. That you have to invent this process over and over and over again, depending on who you're working with and what you're doing.