Lisa Cholodenko

“I think for any artist, your voice is always evolving. For me, the constant is finding a tension or balance between drama and comedy.”

“I feel like I've been observed as an individual more than a gay person, or as a filmmaker with a certain point of view rather than a lesbian filmmaker with a gay point of view.”

“I tend not to be so attracted to films that force me into an intellectual place over an emotional one.”

“L.A. is conventional to a hyper-real degree. It's plastic.”

“I just think self-satisfied people ignore certain signs about other people.”

“I was going through some stressful stuff, and I lost feeling in my face and in my tongue. So I went to a doctor. He said he didn't think I had MS or a brain tumor. He said, 'I think you're just stressed out.'”

“There's a lot of technology out there to help people have children in different ways, and later in life, for better or worse.”

“Along my path, I've realized that this comedy/drama balance is something that's really interesting to me, and I feel, like, authentic to my voice.”

“In June 2002, I had just finished 'Laurel Canyon' and decided to move back to Los Angeles after nearly a decade in New York. Post-9/11 New York felt different.”

“I have a deal with HBO to develop television, and I am also developing a movie called 'The Abstinence Teacher,' which is based on a book by Tom Perrotta.”

“Great actors help. Every project is different. Sometimes it's completely open, and I've been able to cast who I've wanted. And then sometimes people want a certain kind of actor.”

“I was a student at SF State, and I honestly didn't know where I was headed. I thought maybe something in the social sciences. But I happened to be living with a group of people, and one person was a film student. I was always keen on and aware of what she was doing.”

“Not only does Annette Bening have a really lovely, deep voice, but she's also a great articulator. I think I'm more of a mumbler.”

“I don't know if my films are about women in a kind of frolicking - here's a grab bag of women's issues. They are about women of substance with very particular stories.”

“I'm in my mid-40s now, and I came out in 11th grade, so I must have been 17. So that's quite a long time ago, and the temperature and the culture was different.”

“I have enjoyed writing my own stuff, and it's been a privilege to be able to scrap some money together to be able to make films from my own scripts.”

“I had a nutty career. I was living in New York. Then I got to an age where my friends and sister were having children, and I started to think I needed to orient myself towards a world where it could happen.”

“I think I'm interested in these kinds of character dramas, psychological dramas, domestic dramas, whatever you want to call them - comedy dramas.”

“Boundaries get blurry and identities can get lost easily. It's easy to take your partner for granted.”

“If you write something that's personal, there's going to be elements of yourself in it.”