It's like our go-to notion of innocent and secure mythology of American life. I was always amazed when people would come up to me and say that 'Far from Heaven' was exactly what it was like back then. [laughs] I was so disinterested in what it was 'really like' in the 1950s when I was putting the film together, I was only interested in what it was like in movies.

When you really do feel like an alien, and you really do feel like a space creature, and you really do feel you want to experiment and dress up and be different every day, to find what looks best but never stick to one thing... Just the fact that that was offered to those kids during that time is pretty remarkable.

In male-driven [films], the protagonist is not the person who's necessarily in harms way. There's a sense that they're going to figure out how to persevere and take on the obstacles and foes and you don't necessarily know if that's going to happen with the subjects of love stories.

I don't pay attention to the 'marginalizers.' They simply don't have any impact anymore, on where we're headed or what the law is. I'm not worried about gay people in America right now, as opposed to their status in other countries. The change here was remarkable and swift, which was awesome, and we've witnessed that change right before our eyes.

I hope it's water under the bridge, but Richard Carpenter is a complicated individual, and he's also entitled to his own opinion on how his sister is depicted. The film has lived on and survived, and to me is ultimately is an affectionate celebration of Karen Carpenter. I hope that wins out in the end.

You gain all of the rights and privileges and respects that are afforded the majority, and that's ultimately what matters for your kids, or anybody - because we're all innocent of the fact that we are the way we are. But it also means the ways that you coped, and the languages and narratives and points of view that you had no choice but to make from the sidelines - and that often carried with them really acute readings of dominant society - those no longer have the same need.

I always loved theater and acting in plays and directing, writing little plays and directing friends in plays.