John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

We spend so much of our early lives trying to figure out who we really are. And we spend the rest of our lives preparing ourselves to let it go.

There is such a reluctance to address sex as an inherent part of the human experience in this country... The true perversion to me is crushing it and hiding it.

I have seen so few films in which the sex felt really respected by the filmmaker. Hollywood too often shies away from it or makes adolescent jokes about it... Sex is only connected to the negative because people are scared of it.

Nature is a series of murders.

Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and Beckett to me are the most revolutionary.

I always wonder about psychopaths, just because they have no empathy, does that necessarily mean they enjoy being cruel? Because we all know people who seem to have no empathy that we work with; they're not necessarily cruel.

I love when a director says, "I don't know."

Kids' literature now is dystopian, you know.

If there's anything I know about directing, it's how to make actors comfortable. It's where I started and it's what I know, and it's what I love. I like when the actors are really partners and I want them to be excited and I want them to surprise me. I don't want them to be puzzle pieces.

I know what it's like to audition, so it's important that everybody who auditions, even if I know right off they're not right for it, has a good experience. So I'll never just have someone do one pass at it and say "Thank you".

The bigger the budget, the more trouble there is.

It's just odd that something as essential in life as sex has been flattened out in mainstream cinema - and in art cinema. Even in art movies, sex always seems to be treated negatively. Why does it always end in disaster?

It seems like there'd be no Donald Trump without the internet, first of all. He's a tweeter, which is basically just a bullhorn.

I spent a lot of time with making sure everyone felt wanted.

I love British female directors lately.

I feel like a goddamn hippie, I tell you.

I'm going to go wherever I'm needed.