I love Jennifer Connelly.
I love the true life stories and the biopics - people say I'm pigeonholed, but it's a fantastic kind of pigeonhole - but it's tough to then go and direct it because I know all the real people.
I do try to deliver a solid first draft, meaning it's my tenth or twentieth draft and then I call it 'first' and hand it in, much to the chagrin of the studio sometimes when they look at the contract and go, 'You've passed your deadline.'
I like the gray movies. I don't know if audiences always... it makes them work a little harder. And they have to work hard in 'Hoover.'
We've got the same problems any other gay couple and any other straight couple have. But it's 90 percent great. And that's better than most, I think. That's me and Tom.
There was a criticism of 'Milk' that I found truth in, which was that it was focused on gay white men.
My problem is always the number of hours in a day, not the number of things I want to do.
Gay people are more powerful when they work with lesbians. We become more powerful when we're L, G, B and T.
It's really difficult for me to sit and watch anything that I do because I always think about what's there, and what there could be to make it even better.
As a Southerner and as a Mormon you approach life in this aspirational way: 'I will rise above my station.'
I think of the biopics I've written as exploring a more grown-up side of myself, through other characters' lives.
If you go to Paris, try to speak French. If you go to the South, try to speak Southern. Southern isn't stupid. Southern is narrative; Southern is family.
How amazing is it that when a young gay or lesbian person has their first crush, no matter where they live in the country, they can imagine that all the way to marriage? When I first experienced a crush, in Texas, there was maybe a second of butterflies that were then dammed in by the fear of what that meant.
Our brothers and sisters in the trans community, they showed up to every one of our marriage marches when it wasn't necessarily what they needed. So we have to be there for them, use our lessons learned in the marriage fight - how to win when it's difficult, how to change minds that are difficult to change.
My mom would watch me giving speeches on TV and she'd call and say, 'I don't know who this son is.'
I'd say I'm not sure about Christianity, but I sure do like their Christ and the lessons about turning the other cheek, about forgiveness, of yourself and others.
Too many of my heroes have been cut down, but do I want security guards? No. I've been offered them in the past. But the more you present yourself as someone afraid of being attacked, the more people see you as someone to attack.
Do I think J. Edgar Hoover was gay? Yes. Do I think he cross-dressed? No.
Anyone who says a movie about history is a historical document is crazy.
I'm always interested in getting to know people, and that means vilified people as much as those celebrated. You find out that heroes aren't always so heroic, and villains have some bit of humanity in them.
