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You know, with the film industry crews, there's an odd mix between a very technical and a very artistic approach to the work, and sometimes as a woman you have to be a little bit careful about how things come out because people don't really want to listen if it's in a certain emotional tone or too strong.

Male directors always project their own desire of women - how they want a woman to dress, to do her hair. With a woman director, it's more a projection of herself.

Directors are not worried about casting beautiful women, but they are not sure that they want to cast great-looking men. My looks have prevented people from seeing my work.

Women are just more oriented toward feelings - and I don't mean that in a negative way. But with a male actor and a male director, the emotional exploration can only go so far. With a female director, you can end up exploring so many more depths.

For me, a director is a director immaterial of the gender. At the end of the day, the audience is only interested in watching a good film.

I think films about men are often about characters who don't want to express their feelings. You're supposed to kind of admire them for not expressing their feelings. And I feel that's a bit dull. Women's stories often have stronger emotional content, which I enjoy doing. What I really love doing is mixing that with humor.

When I started out, there were three things that made film people look at me with condescension, I was young, I was black, and I was female. I have won a certain respect, but I think the film community still sees directing as a male job.

I think that female roles, they can be victims, they can be sympathetic, they can be in pain, they can be in suffering - but they can't be ugly. I think there's so much fear surrounding that, that it makes a film unlikeable, that it won't sell.

I'm extremely particular how my look should be in a film.

I think male roles are generally much better written. So for actresses, we're always dealing with trying to inject a role with more truth than the writer possibly had in mind.