I think when I work with actors it's all about a process of learning to be private in public, instead of performing in public. Which is what women do: we perform, especially our sexuality.

Only six percent of films are made by women. And so in that that paradigm, a woman making a film at all is a political statement. A woman speaking her truth creates a feminist film.

The history of silencing women is violent. And we feel that in our DNA. On a cellular level we know what it costs to speak our truth.

Female sexuality is presented in our culture as a male fantasy, which doesn't include the reality of the abuse, the pleasure, the pain, the power, the complexity of women's sexuality.

It's terrifying to have a voice right now. It's so terrifying, and it's so essential.

Who can be worried without the light of a memory?

Perhaps the difference between a professor and a bus driver is that the professor can say stupid things with complete authority while the bus driver is not authorized to make brilliant insights.

I am a winged creature who is too rarely allowed to use its wings. Ecstasies do not occur often enough.

I always wanted to live a man's life in a woman's body

What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.

Increasingly fed by a moral and political hysteria, warlike values produce and endorse shared fears as the primary register of social relations.

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

I can play a Jewish guy, another Jewish guy, and then another Jewish guy, and then maybe a Cuban guy. Or at least a Middle Eastern guy. But for me, they're all Jews.

The role of an actor is to make every character believable.

You have to see every potential roadblock as an opportunity and a benefit.