Fantasy and speculative science fiction are the genres that feel closest to how I feel about being alive.

The OA (2016) is our attempt at writing and making a new human language through movement, this mythology we're inventing.

For some reason, I have a very strange conception of time. I am constantly hovering at some overview, more macro. If you take the long view on anything, nothing can really affect you or knock you down.

It was actually quite lovely to just come to the set as an actor and do your job and then leave and not have to be there through the editing process or worry about how we're going to get money for that reshoot. I really enjoy acting in other people's landscapes and imaginations.

I love acting in things I haven't been involved in the writing of. One of the great pleasures of acting is surrendering to someone else's point of view of the world - living inside a character and a story that never would have come out of your mind or heart. The litmus test for whether I want to take on a role or not is usually fear. If I'm afraid of it, then I want to do it.

We put limitations on the way that we think about things, on ourselves, think about all the boxes we live in, male or female, you're this age, that age, this is your job, this is not your job, everything is about getting boxed in. I think we accept a lot of those boxes, that labeling, and the way that we perceive the world, but what even is perception? It all seems pretty flexible to me.

Cinema, traditionally has been about how men are looking at women. I do think we're breaking that up now with more female directors, I think we're starting to see the female gaze.

The only reason I wanted to act is because it's the hardest thing in the world for me to do. I can't think of anything harder. I could probably be a heart surgeon easier. Acting requires this kind of monastic discipline.

We're all drinking from this cultural milk in which there are not many stories of strong, powerful, sexy, entitled women because there are not yet that many female writer-directors, but that's changing. That confusion-that oh my God she writes!-is so strange. It's funny. I just think there aren't many representations of how to be a girl or woman in the world.

[on why she decided to become a screenwriter in relation to her being an actress] How terrifying to surrender your life to being chosen all the time. Having to be chosen and re-chosen. Writing so that I can act became a way of having not more control over my future but not having to wait for permission. You can choose yourself. Hmm, who should play this part? I nominate me!

I always started writing in order to act. I don't know that I could have the discipline to sit down and write if I was going to give it away. That would be too hard. But I love to act in stories that are outside my imagination because I can only conceive of so many things from my point of view. The thing that's intoxicating about being an actor is that you get to live in someone else's world for a while and I hope to do more of that. But I think I'll never stop writing now because I'm wondering why there aren't more representatives of women that are like the women we know. Where's the film with the women who are complicated and strong and beautiful and sexy and interesting and of all body types? You don't get to see enough of them. So there's something important in attempting to write them for myself and for the insanely talented women out there.