The Catholic theatrics are pretty high quality, but the Protestants have better hymns.

I've made so many films in New York. There was an assumption I think a lot of people had that I am a New Yorker, that I am from New York, and I always felt like nothing could be further from the truth.

I'd applied to graduate school for playwriting, and I got rejected by every school. I felt that theatre was closed but that, when it came to film, the door was very slightly ajar. If I have any virtues, it's that I'm good at walking through doors that are slightly ajar.

I was part of a hip-hop group called Fly Style. I was one of two white girls, and I was part of the younger company, which was called Touch of Style. And it was amazing. It gave me a different perception of dance and beauty because the other girls were mostly African-American and Latina.

I was very serious about ballet until the age of 12, at which point my body changed, and it wasn't quite right.

One of the things that happens when you write characters - and maybe this is my own sentimentality - is that I always find I have an instinct to protect them.

I sound like an old man when I talk about the Internet, but I am actually worried about what it's doing to our brains and our sense of connection.

I'm scared of the Internet. That's not real, but it is. I'm worried about what it's doing to us.

Young Harrison Ford, what a dreamboat.

I feel like a good pair of diamond studs goes a long way. They make everything look dressy, and you just seem more put together.

I always have a soft spot in my heart for New York designers and independent designers, people who are doing the fashion equivalent of what I'm trying to do in film.

For Mike Mills, I learned that having dance parties and crying with your cast does not make you a weak director, it makes you a strong director.

There's something very satisfying about old cameras because they're ingenious. I mean when you take them apart and actually see, 'Oh, this is how we make photographs,' it's an ingenious thing, but it feels like it's in a way a layman can appreciate, whereas a digital camera, I don't even begin to know what goes into making a digital camera.

I feel like I'm an actor that likes to have lots of points of connection.

As a writer, I think I'm mainly interested in contemporary themes, so when I create my own stuff, it's inherently that. But as an actor, I would like to do lots of different things. I would love to play someone completely different from myself in a costume drama.

For me, the French new wave is Truffaut and Rohmer. Godard I sometimes have trouble with because he's very much of a director's director. I feel Truffaut is such a humanist, and I always go in that direction.

I'm really interested in trying to tell stories about women that don't involve romantic components. That's so much a part of the way we feel about female characters and their needs that it feels like it's built in - but I'd like to find a way that it's not. There are so many more stories than that.

I love writing, and I think I'm kind of a workaholic. I'm happiest when I'm working.

I'm not goal-oriented so much as I'm constantly aware of what I'm passionate about, and I'm constantly updating the list. I envision many possible futures for myself where I could be happy, so I just try to keep my passions alive.

Acting was always the first love, but a lot of people want to be actors, and my goal was, 'Come hell or high water, I will be a part of this world, however I can.' So that just led me to throwing myself into every aspect of narrative storytelling I could.

I sometimes have to turn off the fan part of my brain when I'm acting; otherwise, it would be terrible.

I love movies, but sometimes I think it's better for actresses not to be total cinephiles. You have to be able to do the work at some point; you can't be totally starstruck. 'I can't believe it's Woody Allen!' You have to get past that.

I was a massive Whit Stillman fan. Groupie. I would have done anything for him.

It's really hard for me to be around people I admire.