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" I was always going to direct. I wasn't going to hand my characters over to anyone else. "

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" Filmmaking was the way I could write characters and not have to give them up to anybody. "

" Actors need to know why they're saying what they're saying, more than just learning their lines. "

" The only advice I can give is to surround yourself with people who are friends and people who believe in you and your material and who are going to help you take it to the next level. It doesn't mean you don't listen to criticism, but you listen to it and edit it, and you figure out what you can take. "

Surround Yourself

" I definitely felt the desire to, like - I definitely knew there was an elsewhere. I definitely knew that, like, if I were going to be free, I needed to be away from, kind of, like, Nashville and kind of get out of the South and get out of the country. "

" For each character, I try to understand what is driving them. "

" 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. "

" I'm interested in characters and relationships. "

" I've always liked to write, but I never thought I could make a career out of it. "

" You don't have to make your life look like anybody else says it should look. "

" Going into a room and saying, 'I'm a black lesbian' - it's a strike against you. "

" '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. "

" Coming-of-age stories, people roll their eyes. "

" I've been around many different lives, many different voices. It was amazing material for a writer. "

" I think art breaks down otherness. "

" We shouldn't be discriminating against each other. The whole 'light skin versus dark skin' is an idea we need to break down. "

" I think Charlottesville was shocking for some, but it wasn't for me or for my family, I mean, because I grew up in 1980s Nashville. "

" Filmmaking in general is my second career. I thought that writing wasn't practical, so I went to business school and got an MBA, and I worked three years in grant management. "

" 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.' "

" I still want to do features, but on my own terms. "

" The enemy is the system. And the system is made up of people, and we have a choice in that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" To have a simultaneous global audience as an artist is more than you could ever hope for. "

" I thought I'd get an MBA, and then I could be anything. And I'd write on the side. That was the idea. "

" I'm always choosing the hard things, the things that aren't easy. "

" My ultimate dream was just to be an auteur. "

" As long as you tell the best story possible, you can trust that people will be able to connect to it. "

" My dad was a cop, you know, and I grew up three houses down from people who used Confederate flags as curtains. "

" I think art always comments on the time and place it was created. "

" To me, if you can do the Wicked Witch live, you can play anybody. "