You have to have a good script. You have to have compelling and complicated characters that you want to hang out with. Also, since you're going to be living with your crew and cast, I think it's really critical to create a great working environment, because we're spending so many days, so many hours together.

Lesli Linka Glatter

It should not be harder for our daughters to direct than our sons. It should be an equal playing field.

Lesli Linka Glatter

equal daughter son

As a storyteller, I think where working in television can almost be like lifting weights - you really have to know what your story is about.

Lesli Linka Glatter

lifting storyteller thinking

You have to have leadership and you have to also have compassion for all the people you're working with. If the demands of the job start to erode that too much, I really have to take a second look at what I'm doing. We get to tell stories for a living and get paid for it. If we're not showing up most days with an attitude of gratitude.

Lesli Linka Glatter

gratitude compassion attitude

We sit for a week and listen to an extraordinary amount of people talk about what they do in the intelligence world. It's pretty overwhelming.

Lesli Linka Glatter

week people world

I was born in Dallas, and I grew up both there and in New York City, which was very schizophrenic.

Lesli Linka Glatter

i-was-born city new born

When I went into film, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't be able to do whatever I wanted to do. Maybe that was a good thing in the beginning. I had blinders on, and I charged forward.

Lesli Linka Glatter

beginning never good me

One of my first episodic jobs was on 'Twin Peaks,' if you can imagine that - one of the most unusual series ever.

Lesli Linka Glatter

twin first you imagine

I like to really know what every scene is about, what the text is, what the subtext is. Then I figure out how to express that when I'm shooting.

Lesli Linka Glatter

how like know shooting

Like any director working today, I started out when somebody took a shot at hiring me. It's how we all start out - male, female, white or minority.

Lesli Linka Glatter

start me white today

As somebody who has been an executive producer on a television series, I can tell you that increasing director diversity is as simple as hiring more women and more people of color.

Lesli Linka Glatter

you women simple people

We've heard the excuses from those responsible for hiring that they don't want to take a chance on a new director. But the truth is that the industry hires new directors all the time; it's just that most of them are white males.

Lesli Linka Glatter

truth-is truth white time

Sometimes there are no good choices.

Lesli Linka Glatter

good choices sometimes

Demi Moore is an extremely sexy woman. Melanie Griffith, Annette Bening - these are all brave women. They've all managed to have kids and still be sexy. If anything, being a mom makes them even sexier.

Lesli Linka Glatter

woman women sexy brave

My background is in modern dance. I was a dancer and a choreographer before I was a director, and in dance, you can't cheat. Your leg goes up in the air, or it doesn't. So when I direct, I'm a big preparer.

Lesli Linka Glatter

your big you dance

I don't ever want to impose something on the story. I want the story to tell me.

Lesli Linka Glatter

something story me want

When you're working in a collaborative storytelling medium, every step of the way, you're opening yourself up.

Lesli Linka Glatter

step yourself you way

Every creator sets up their world differently. That's what's so amazing about someone like Aaron Sorkin and his writing.

Lesli Linka Glatter

amazing someone writing world

The characters, to me, in 'Homeland' are not one note in any way.

Lesli Linka Glatter

any me homeland way

On various shows, I've been the producing-director, the executive producer-director; and if you were working with the material you love with the right group of people, it's an incredible job to be doing.

Lesli Linka Glatter

job you love people

Trust the material; trust the story that you're telling.

Lesli Linka Glatter

telling story you trust