Sean Baker

I like hearing from everybody and not just my co-screenwriters or producers. For example, while on set, I find it valuable to turn to my PA and ask, 'What do you think? Is this scene working? Do you like what you see? You got any ideas for that line there because that idea isn't working for me.'

I think with 'Tangerine' we were taking that gamble - it was a risk - that we could tell the story in a comedic fashion to attract an audience and shed light on an issue.

You know, master classes are essentially extended Q&As. That's how I always approach them. I don't mean to downplay it. It's just that I never fancy myself as someone who is taking a class. 'Master class' insinuates a teacher, and I'm not one.

In our most desperate times, people going through true hardships use humor to cope.

Children are funny.

Tangerine' taught me that if you win an audience over with comedy, then hopefully have a soulful message at the same time.

I make dramedies, but 'Tangerine' really has a lot of comedy, and I saw that it had a great effect - it reached a larger audience.

Greg the Bunny,' the comedy television show that I co-created, happened almost by accident. Dan Milano, Spencer Chinoy and myself made a public access show that caught the eye of IFC, and it has had three incarnations since then with a season on Fox.

When you're a child, the colors are brighter, sounds are louder and whatever.

I remember, at one point, I was actually studying it kind of intensively around 2001, when Hrithik Roshan was big. I wanted to learn more about it, as I've always been intrigued by the craft of Bollywood, in that how well they were shot in glorious widescreen. I would actually go to see Bollywood films in the theaters in New York and New Jersey.

It feels dangerous when people say, 'Oh, Sean Baker focuses on marginalised people.' And offensive. As if I'm standing there with my planner thinking, 'OK, where's the next marginalised group I can make a movie about?'

Most of the characters in 'The Little Rascals' were living in poverty, but they decided to focus on the joy of being a kid: the humor, the heart, the resilience.