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" For each character, I try to understand what is driving them. "
Dee Rees
Try
Character
Driving
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" 'Mudbound,' you know, is about home. 'Mudbound' is about what it means to be a citizen, and 'Mudbound,' in fact, is set in this post-reconstruction era that we haven't really explored. You know, not since 'Sounder' have we even really explored that experience. "
Dee Rees
You
Home
Experience
" I'm always excited about stories that allow me to explore a character and create interesting stories and worlds that we haven't seen before. "
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Character
" When I first started going out to lesbian clubs, I felt a very binary recreation of hetero culture. There are butches and femmes, and I felt like I was neither of those things. I'm in a turtleneck and jeans and just learning to be comfortable in that space. I realized I don't have to be a certain way. "
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Jeans
Culture
Way
" I'm interested in telling stories about characters that are interesting and who are challenging in some way, one that will make you think about them afterwards. "
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Interesting
Will
Way
" I want people to get from 'Pariah' that it's okay to be you and not to check a box as a parent or child. "
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Child
Okay
Parent
" New York offers people the anonymity to be themselves without judgment. "
Dee Rees
Without
New York
New
" Both grandfathers fought in different wars. My mother's father fought in World War II, and then my father's father fought in Korea. And they're both these country boys, one from rural Tennessee and one from rural Louisiana - and they never went back home. "
Dee Rees
War
Home
Father
" Our statement's on the screen. Awards won't make it better, and a lack of awards won't make it worse. "
Dee Rees
Awards
Better
Worse
" I grew up listening to Mary J. Blige's music. When I initially met her, it was like, 'Oh, wow. I'm meeting this woman whose music was the soundtrack of my college years.' "
Dee Rees
Woman
Music
Listening
" You don't get to hand footnotes to the audience or explain what you were trying to do and what it's supposed to be. Everything has to be on the screen, and it has to be clear. "
Dee Rees
Audience
Trying
You
" Our country is pathologically violent. "
Dee Rees
Violent
Our
Country
" I had this thing where I only wanted to work on original material, no adaptations, and obviously, that changed. I really wanted to have the resources and have the space and the time to tell stories that I've really cared about. I've kind of changed my approach, but I've gotten to do that, to tell stories that I really care about. "
Dee Rees
Care
Kind
Tell
" You don't have to make your life look like anybody else says it should look. "
Dee Rees
Your
You
Look
" You don't have to make yourself look like people expect you to look. "
Dee Rees
Yourself
Expect
Look
" I was always going to direct. I wasn't going to hand my characters over to anyone else. "
Dee Rees
Direct
Always
Going
" It's a failure of imagination if you can only write what you know - we have to be able to imagine different worlds. "
Dee Rees
Failure
Imagination
Imagine
" My ultimate dream was just to be an auteur. "
Dee Rees
Dream
Just
Ultimate
" Contemporarily, we struggle with people worried about representation sometimes. It's a burden, as artists, that we take on that limits the work. It limits the characters people play. It limits the roles they want to do. "
Dee Rees
Play
People
Struggle
" I was going to study business administration at Florida A&M, at the height of Reaganomics. "
Dee Rees
Going
Study
Florida
" For 'Pariah,' people were surprised Kim Wayans was there, but comedians have a dark streak; they're comedians for a reason. "
Dee Rees
Reason
People
Dark
" My first job was at Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, my second job was at a pharmaceutical company in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. My third job was at Palmolive. And I realized, three jobs in three years, maybe it wasn't the job. It had to be me. "
Dee Rees
Heights
Three
New
" There's a lot of power in saying no to big things that you don't want to do in order to say yes to the kind of things that really inspire you. "
Dee Rees
Saying
Inspire
Say
" In an industry that's uncertain and when you're in a lot of situations that are anxiety-causing, to have someone there who has your back unconditionally and cares for you and the material and would give anything to make sure everything is OK, makes you feel so much better. It gives you a sense of security as an artist. "
Dee Rees
Feel
Security
You
" I'd go to lesbian parties. I felt like I wasn't hard enough to be butch, but I wasn't wearing heels and a skirt - I wasn't femme - so I felt like I was sort of invisible. "
Dee Rees
Hard
Heels
Like
" Having to stake out your identity and have people question whether or not you're being yourself was a tension that I could relate to. "
Dee Rees
Tension
Identity
Yourself
" You can't be limited by your own experience. "
Dee Rees
Limited
Experience
Own
" We have to create a range, and we have to let there be possibilities. And basically, by showing there are different types of people, you write down the monolith. You stop having to represent for all black people when you allow there to be different types represented. "
Dee Rees
People
You
Create
" The best thing in the world is to put two characters who hate each other side by side. Or put two people who love each other far away, so they have to reach for each other with their looks. "
Dee Rees
Love
People
Reach
" Coming-of-age stories, people roll their eyes. "
Dee Rees
Roll
Stories
People
" My dad was a cop, you know, and I grew up three houses down from people who used Confederate flags as curtains. "
Dee Rees
Used
You
Know