In New York there's a lot of interstitial spaces; spaces in between spaces, where you're changing, and New York gives you the anonymity to be who you want to be. Dee Rees More Quotes by Dee Rees More Quotes From Dee Rees When you choose the hard things, it takes longer than you think to get it done, and if you choose the hard thing and have a very particular way you want to do them and are uncompromising in that, then sometimes it takes even longer. Dee Rees think you sometimes way Knowing what you want is not a shortcoming. Let people deal with their own anxieties. Dee Rees own you want people I want people to get from 'Pariah' that it's okay to be you and not to check a box as a parent or child. Dee Rees child you parent people You don't have to make your life look like anybody else says it should look. Dee Rees your look you life I thought I'd get an MBA, and then I could be anything. And I'd write on the side. That was the idea. Dee Rees write side anything thought I've been around many different lives, many different voices. It was amazing material for a writer. Dee Rees amazing been many different I was always going to direct. I wasn't going to hand my characters over to anyone else. Dee Rees going hand over always I was interested with exploring the idea of who gets to be in possession of the land - how it's sometimes impossible to go back home, how family can be the thing that drags you down. Dee Rees you family home sometimes With 'Pariah,' at the time, I had just come out. I had a coming out experience, and I was writing about it, transposing my experience as an adult: What would it have been like if I had been a teenager in Brooklyn? The funny thing was people thought I was from Brooklyn. I had to be like, 'No, I'm from Nashville.' Dee Rees experience time funny people There's a dearth of media around young black women and certainly a dearth of LGBT media for people of color. Dee Rees women black color people 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. Dee Rees go like hard enough When I first came out, holidays were hard. I reached a point where I didn't go home anymore. I constructed my own, kind of like, family group around Christmas. Dee Rees holidays family christmas home Before Charlottesville, it might have been easy to dismiss the plot of 'Mudbound' as no longer relevant. Now, I feel like audiences will be more receptive to the material - and to interrogating their personal histories after watching it. Dee Rees personal will feel easy 'Mudbound' highlights the fact that we're still battling a lot of the same issues as we were all of those decades ago. Dee Rees fact those same still For me, like, obviously, I want to see myself onscreen. Dee Rees see myself me want I want more images onscreen because when I was growing up, I think, like, that one kiss in 'The Color Purple' was the one thing that I had. Or 'The Watermelon Woman.' Dee Rees kiss woman think color Creatively, I just like interesting characters. So straight, gay, or whatever - like, whatever, wherever the characters are coming from or their lifestyle. Dee Rees like lifestyle gay interesting