I don't feel like my films are about gender; they are about identity - but a different slant on identity.

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.

In May 2006, I had our son, Calder. I spent the next couple of years learning how to be a mom.

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.

Film is like sculpture, writing, acting, technical arts, all sorts of arts. And that's why I wanted to do it for so long, because it would include so many places for attention.

Reading 'IT' again as an adult, you understand it from a different perspective. It is basically a love letter to childhood and talks about all of the treasures of that time, like imagination and belief, that are inevitably lost in adulthood.

I have an imagination that will go in any direction it is prodded. I pride myself on being able to become enthusiastic about anything: If you tell me to write a screenplay about cucumber farms, I'll swallow hard, and in 48 hours, I'll be in love with cucumber farms.

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.