Something happened to me when I wrote female characters in my early plays; it was a real liberation.

Is my job as a child, even as an adult, is my job to heal the wounds of my parents' childhoods?

The job in every re-write is to make it harder for your characters to get the thing that they need.

Well, because my films are really about how people interact with each other, and the complexity, and the nuance, and the surprise of those moments I try to create a safe enough space that allows the actors to operate from their own instincts. My direction is more suggestions, prompts or questions.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.

The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings.

Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.

In Goddess religion death is not feared, but is understood to be a part of life, followed by birth and renewal.