Sebastian Lelio

“I've been following my intuition and what moves me.”

“I learned at an early age to be socially effective while practicing disappearing.”

“In the case of 'Disobedience,' the very secretive way of life and religion and tradition that the North London Orthodox Jewish community has was a huge invitation to explore an unknown world. And also a possible trap, and I tried to overcome that by portraying it, hopefully, with great nuance and detail and texture.”

“Casting is an art, and if you're interested in people, like I am, casting is essential.”

“In Latin America, cinema has always been a bourgeois activity, I guess, as it is everywhere. It's just a stupidly expensive art form, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

“The idea behind 'Gloria' was to take a secondary character - the aunt, the mother - and stay with her as she becomes our protagonist.”

“The mystery of film is not in the script. It's in the shooting, in the interacting of humans and space and time.”

“How can you repress Rachel McAdams? She's so full of life.”

“I was always making new friends, then losing them.”

“This idea of walls, segregation, labels, and 'You against us' and 'We are superior and you are inferior.' Which people are legitimate? Which relationships are legitimate or not? Who declares that under which authority? These are things that are hugely important.”

“I'm not saying transgender characters should be only interpreted by transgender actors - because that would be as rigid as saying transgender actors cannot play cisgender roles, and that's not the idea.”

“Rachel Weisz is amazing, instinctive, volcanic - an amazing force of nature.”

“When you're filming, you're blind. But if you follow what really moves you, then you operate from a place of hope: maybe that the story you're telling will resonate with whatever the world will have become when the film is ready to be born.”

“I didn't know how I was going to deal with 'Disobedience' because it takes place in such a specific and often secretive world.”

“English is not my language.”

“Latin American culture is conservative, and the rural areas are tremendously conservative. I don't believe that's just a Chilean thing.”

“I don't come from a rich family, but my parents are professionals.”

“I had the idea that I'm going to make a trans-genre film about a transgender woman.”

“I'm very open to following the stories that move me and reach that flexibility where you can be more flexible. I'm expanding my horizons.”

“The use of music in 'Gloria' is not cynical.”