Dee Rees

“I grew up in Nashville in a white suburb. We lived next to a Klan member. We didn't see hoods, but my dad knew that guy was a Grand Dragon.”

“Coming-of-age stories, people roll their eyes.”

“Our country is pathologically violent.”

“We have to create a range, and we have to let there be possibilities. And basically, by showing there are different types of people, you write down the monolith. You stop having to represent for all black people when you allow there to be different types represented.”

“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.'”

“Going into a room and saying, 'I'm a black lesbian' - it's a strike against you.”

“I was never physically abused, but when I came out to my parents late in life, when I was 27, they definitely had an intervention.”

“I can't put anything out that's not me.”

“Actors need to know why they're saying what they're saying, more than just learning their lines.”

“If I can go three grandmothers back and find a slave, that means someone else can go three grandmothers back and find a slave owner. When you interrogate your histories, it forces you to rethink who you are and where you are.”

“I wrote poetry and short stories. I would send them to magazines; they wouldn't get in. But short stories are how I found philosophy and how I'd understand the world.”

“I thought that marketing was a way to be creative in business but quickly learned all creative stuff happens at the ad agency.”

“'Mudbound' highlights the fact that we're still battling a lot of the same issues as we were all of those decades ago.”

“The only advice I can give is to surround yourself with people who are friends and people who believe in you and your material and who are going to help you take it to the next level. It doesn't mean you don't listen to criticism, but you listen to it and edit it, and you figure out what you can take.”

“I'm not a writer that writes every day. I just kind of have ideas. I jot them down when I have them, and when I have enough, I just start. And for me, I start more around noon, and I'm all about feeling. Once there's a theme, I can't not write.”

“I like 'Paris is Burning' by Jennie Livington.”

“For me, books were my source of affirmation. Alice Walker, Audrey Lord - it was these authors who wrote about their experiences. It was this weird thing where I was censored in terms of what I could watch but not in terms of what I could read.”

“You don't have to make yourself look like people expect you to look.”

“I'm interested in telling stories about characters that are interesting and who are challenging in some way, one that will make you think about them afterwards.”

“It's okay to be yourself and to love and accept yourself however you are.”