Karyn Kusama

“What makes a lot of suspenseful films work is very, very particular points of view and very subjective use of the camera.”

“I don't get to make many features. It's not like that's something I can just snap my fingers and make happen.”

“It's freeing to be able to consistently make creative decisions and ask creative questions of the team without feeling like, 'Does this make me vulnerable to getting canned?' That's a big part of being in a studio - they can always fire you.”

“It's important to tell meaningful stories and to find new ways to communicate those stories to people.”

“It is important to know what audiences might expect from their genre movies, but I think it is also important to not give them everything they want. As a viewer, I think it can get pretty boring that way.”

“It's very difficult to figure out, for me, what stops really talented young female filmmakers from having the kind of careers that their really talented young male counterparts are having.”

“When horror films are made in times of political strife, I think they're not made with an instinct to add to the chaos but to bring shape to it.”

“There's something about the girls and the boys who just live for the moment and don't think a second beyond their needs and the here and now that, ultimately, is pretty tragic.”

“What kind of world is it if we allow people who are violent and do terrible things off the hook? What does that say about the world we're living in - it's like a world upside down, right?”

“There's no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is to get to the top. It's experiencing the climb itself - in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue - that has to be the goal.”

“I think the crux of this urgent and real conversation about representation and diversity in art-making and storytelling both behind and in front of the camera ultimately has to do with simply seeing more human perspectives.”

“I don't want to direct a Marvel movie. I don't care about those mythologies.”

“When I reflect on the losses I've experienced, I've come to believe that those experiences were transformative, that they shaped who I am.”

“I think that idea that sort of our emotional self and our emotional life is a faucet that you turn on and off, and that we are in control of it entirely, that's a really appealing idea for a lot of people. But there are certainly the times where it's appealing to me, but it never quite works the way I hoped it would.”

“A lot of the best suspense operates on a careful withholding of information as opposed to the doling out of information.”

“The people in the decision-making positions need to be thinking differently about who to hire, and looking more unsparingly at their choices. Why give this person a break over that person? Why give this person a second chance over that person? I do think that's where gender comes into play.”

“For better and for worse, I feel like sorrow and grief are really transformative personal experiences for me, and I question what I would be had I decided to take a different path and not embrace that kind of pain.”

“I grew up in the Midwest. I understand a sense of the small-town mentality, small-town social politics.”

“I think there are always going to be people who say, even if they are engaged in the movie, they just want it to move faster.”

“Reading the script for 'Jennifer's Body,' I just thought that here was a script that really exposes the horror between girls and friendships. I always sort of approached the film with that in mind first, and then thought about the crazy ways that that horror would express itself.”