When you work as a cinematographer, the actors look to you for reassurance. When you're lighting them, they can never think you're making an adjustment because of the way they look. If they are nervous, it impacts their performance, which impacts the story.

No, I'm not doing 'Star Wars.'

We're too complacent. We let things happen to us. And you don't have to let things happen to you. You can affect change.

Directing is not about gender. Directing is individual to the actual individual. From woman to woman, directing is completely different. It's about giving more than half the population a chance to express themselves, you know what I mean? It doesn't always mean it's going to be more sensitive.

There are a lot of women who direct in a way that is even more masculine sometimes than men - and that's not a bad thing, either.

Ultimately, the idea of being able to escape and lose myself in a new world every time I go to 'work' was too appealing to ignore.

There are obviously issues in our industry. That starts at the top with studio execs who - not just men - don't believe a woman could handle a huge franchise or big action movie.

I don't want to come in and do something that's been done before. You know, for me, it's not that I wouldn't come in and do a sequel to something, but it's only if I can bring something new to the table and I'm not following an extremely strict path.

I have a lot of brothers and male cousins. I grew up in an informal, jokey environment.

Sometimes you come up with an idea when you're going out for a job, and then when you actually get into dissecting the world, you end up changing your approach, just because that's the way art goes sometimes.

'The Handmaid's Tale' is a very special story.

The way I'm used to telling a story is by looking through the viewfinder and being really close to the actors.

A sad truth I learned as a DP starting out was that it doesn't matter how beautiful I make it if the story and performance are not there. That should be number one.

Whenever a woman wields a gun in a film, it ends up looking like they're trying to be sexy rather than they actually know what they're doing.

In my 20s, I was too shy to reach out to successful DPs and directors for an internship or to shadow them. I see young people nowadays doing that all the time. I think that experience would have been cool.

I do think it's unfair for women who get pegged with creating fare for other women.

I like movies as a viewer that challenge me to actually think rather than spoon feed everything to me.

I would rather be hired solely for my talent, not just to fill a quota. I also don't want to shoot just any studio movie just to say I'm shooting studio movies - for me, quality of the material comes first, and if eventually that leads to a really great studio project, then that's a bonus.

In TV, you are much more likely to see the episode closer to the script as written - in terms of the order of the scenes - than you would in a movie, and here's why: you don't have as many days to edit. You have 10 to 12 weeks or more to edit a feature, and you have four days to edit TV. That's a huge difference.

I think I subconsciously knew you needed life experience to direct, and the best films are directed by people who have really lived, with exceptions like Orson Welles, who just burst out of the gate. There are prodigies like that, but for me, personally, I thought I needed life experience.

Funny enough, the most discrimination I've ever gotten as a woman in this industry has been from other women.

We have this attitude in America of, 'Someone else is going to fix the problem.' That's what the majority of Americans have. Or, 'I'm just going to go online and sign this petition, and that will take care of it.' That's doesn't do it.

Normally, if I would read in a script that there's mostly flashbacks and mostly voiceover, I would run as far away as possible.

The instant feeling I had after I gave birth was you couldn't get that baby in my hands fast enough.

I really hate having to put 'female' in front of any title, because it puts us in some kind of weird category for handicapped people or something.

Real people - everyone is not just one thing.

I'm trying to make people understand: yes, women are oppressed in 'The Handmaid's Tale.' But the men are also oppressed, too. It's just a very scary world for anyone.

Don't think of your gender as a handicap.

I think it took me seven years before I got the script for 'Frozen River.' That's the movie I had been looking for my whole career. When I read that, I knew I had to shoot that movie - that it'd be a game-changer. It was one of those scripts where I read it, and I was like, 'This movie could get into Sundance.'

I feel like directing is more about who the individual is rather than if they're a man or a woman. It's kind of hard to generalize and group all of us female filmmakers into one group, like we're all going provide you with the same thing, because we're not. We're all individuals.

A lot of TV and film commits to one tone.

I try to shoot film wherever possible. There's nothing like it.

Color correction is one of my things.

When 'Frozen River' started to get really big, I was four months pregnant. So when these agents and directors wanted to meet me, I was coming in pregnant, and people didn't really take me seriously. They thought, 'This woman is not going to shoot another movie again. She's going to become a mom, and that's what happens.' But that was not the case.

My dreams are like fuzzy Charlie Kaufman movies, so I love going to sleep.

In everything I do, the aesthetics are driven by the emotion. However I can do that with a camera, whether it's a long lens or a wide lens, I'll do.

I always like to do sound design, and in movies, you have more leeway with that, but I don't really notice that sound design is being used in TV other than just location sound.

We moved around every winter. I don't know. Maybe my dad was, like, on the run from the law.

My family lives on Long Island.

When it was time to go to college, I was going to apply to Boston University for journalism, and dad said, 'Why not apply to NYU film school, because you love telling stories and taking pictures?' And I thought, 'Oh, I can do that for a job? Cool!'

I've DP'd so many films for first-time directors, and I know the trauma, the heartbreak, the vulnerability, how much you have to believe in the story.

Women have to compensate more in the personality department in order to get the things that men get. And they don't have as much leeway for being divas or jerks.

I have been lucky in getting a lot of the projects I've wanted, maybe because I'm really, really driven. But there is a stigma that women can't direct big studio films. Not that I want to do that, but it is a topic that comes up a lot.

In America, we tend to be very sheltered, and I'm speaking from personal experience because I feel sheltered.

I think it's a common misconception that because you're a woman, you can't command a set and have people respect you, and for some reason, Hollywood is really far behind every other industry. It's getting better; it's just slow.

I don't want to just make the safe, easy commercial films.

I want to make the movies that move people in a way they've never been moved before.

My father passed away when I was 18. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it is not like that all the time. Not every moment is dark.

As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.

When I read 'Meadowland,' I could see the potential for a very internal, quiet story that could be powerful and emotional but also disturbing and dark.