Punk rock, when I was a part of it, was called 'the underground.' There was something very attractive in all the hidden places, the hidden histories.

I don't think there is any one route to directing.... Other than that I think you just have to think 'By any means possible' and take any job you can that will get you experience. I also did a lot for free. I got paid virtually nothing for my first film, but it changed my life.

I really dislike it when women reject feminism; that's ridiculous. I am a product of feminism. Without feminism I would not be making films.

There's no need to be tragic or destroy yourself or jump off a cliff. That's no longer the paradigm I wish to follow, or that anyone should follow. It is not necessary to be tragic. It's bullshit that women can't have it all. Why not? Other people do.

Some actors can draw from their own darkness.

When people see the conventions, they think they're going to get the straightforward genre - I don't give them that and they get mad. People see that and they think I don't understand the conventions because I'm not a good filmmaker.

I make unpopular versions of popular things. I make a horror film and it's not a horror film. None of my genre movies function as genre movies.

People make films about all kinds of relationships, but they won't do these extremely intense platonic love affairs that happen between young girls. In a way they are more intense than anything else you ever have, and that's what I wanted to make a film about, though it was in the context of a horror film.

There was a lot of anger among critics that I had not made a sexy movie.

I was lucky with my first film because it had Warhol in it. That was the selling point.