Somebody pointed out to me that there's no horror film on my resume, which is true, but I also don't really go see those movies. Although when I was thinking about it, I was thinking "I would probably have a really nice beach house if I made a horror movie." They seem to be very popular. I just don't think it's my thing.

The crazy thing is, I sent out 200 letters and I got one job interview, and I actually got that job, which was working as a development assistant at Joel Silver's company. I always say that to people when they ask "What do I do?" and I'm like, "Look, I didn't get ten responses, and I didn't get five interviews, but I got one interview, and I got the job," and that was all I needed.

I don't think actually that kind of ego check or "I could do better" mentality probably serves better in Hollywood, because it's definitely not a meritocracy. You can look at any number of careers and sort of see that they don't really make sense if it was only based on your movies working either creatively or financially. There are people that move ahead without that, and there are people that don't move ahead even if they did have that.

The industry has changed in big ways. When I started making movies, the studios were not all owned by huge conglomerates, so the decisions were made in a very different way. Over the years, I've watched both the rise and the decimation and fall of the DVD as a portion of where you could generate revenue from making this kind of content. We've seen this change in the balance sheet on the international side of the ledger; it's now a much bigger percentage than it is on domestic, even though movies would have been previously really domestically driven.

I remember somebody had said to me "What're you doing with a movie like Boiler Room? It's all men and you're a woman. You should be making romantic comedies," or something like that. Boiler Room, for me, was a morality tale. I remember this interview where they said to me "Yeah, but all the characters are men," and I was like, "But I'm a girl, I like men!" It's not like there's nothing interesting to me just because a lot of characters in that movie happen to be male. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I only wanna make Must Love Dogs over and over again.

Somebody asked me, "When was the last time it was harder for you as a woman"? And I was like, "What time is it? Do you mean today?" I hate to say that, because it sounds so depressing, but it absolutely happens in many many ways all the time, large and small ways. But it's not like it creates new pain for me on a daily basis, it's just a pain that I accepted long ago. It's definitely harder.

That can be undersold, I think, the importance when you're trying to do something good is that everybody understands the director's vision, everybody believes in it, and everybody can find their own path to supporting it, and that's how you end with a great movie.