I'll accept being Phoebe to people for a while longer, given how much fun it was. That's totally fair.
I'm able to inspire other people, to see the potential of a career, they can look to me and see that they can do it.
The biggest challenges are always getting into the rooms that you need to get into and having people open to the types of stories that I want to tell. And I feel that just being a female director and doing that is a big deal in this country. On my third movie I worked with a French DP. I asked him has he ever worked with a woman director before? He said in France a third of directors are women; so you can’t avoid them. So I realized that the US is behind.
Honestly, I do spend most of my time between films trying to get the next one made.
One of my foolish qualities is to jump boldly, and then think about it later.
I think Black Nativity movie has a very clear message. It's about a family in crisis facing some of the very familiar struggles we face in our communities. It's really about love, redemption, forgiveness, faith and family, the things that have gotten us through so many hard times, and that continue to get us through them. When times are hard, we need each other.
Perseverance is what I tell my students. It's important that you keep your dream alive, because you're going to encounter a lot of obstacles, and no one is going to dream big for you. You have to have the fortitude and the resilience to stick with your own dreams. That can be hard.
Love is the spiritual essence of what we do. Technique is the manifestation of the preparation and investment as a result of the love.
Did people waste time before the internet existed?
A lot of artists are involved with fabrication. Artists today are making more objects and many of them need the participation of a dealer in order to facilitate and provide support for projects. So that has changed. But I don't know if what it means to be an artist has really changed. I hope that it hasn't.
the meeting between ignorance and knowledge, between brutality and culture - it begins in the dignity with which we treat the dead