Sebastian Lelio

I didn't know how I was going to deal with 'Disobedience' because it takes place in such a specific and often secretive world.

When you're filming, you're blind. But if you follow what really moves you, then you operate from a place of hope: maybe that the story you're telling will resonate with whatever the world will have become when the film is ready to be born.

Fashion is totally political, the icon of a political system.

In order to make a film, you have to operate on many different levels, making all these different forms of expression converse, and so I just followed that intuition.

I don't believe in closed scripts; I think that they should be open.

I knew 'Transparent' and saw a few episodes of 'Orange is the New Black,' so I knew about the trans actor in that cast. Of course, I saw 'Boys Don't Cry' back in the day. But the path that led me to this subject was different... it's just my curiosity as a human being more than my awareness of any political struggles.

I'm not saying transgender characters should be only interpreted by transgender actors - because that would be as rigid as saying transgender actors cannot play cisgender roles, and that's not the idea.

I'm interested in the intersection of character and actor.

This idea of walls, segregation, labels, and 'You against us' and 'We are superior and you are inferior.' Which people are legitimate? Which relationships are legitimate or not? Who declares that under which authority? These are things that are hugely important.

I'm interested in characters. I love them, and I love to write them.

I wanted to be a poet. I wrote from ages 15 to 22, but I left it because I discovered, and fell in love with, cinema.

It's not that I only want to make films about women, but from my experience, I have been very interested in the women who play these characters.