At the beginning of each year, we have conceptual meetings. How are we going to challenge ourselves this year? So we suggested a transsexual or transgender. And to be honest, I am shocked they let us do it.
Well, I always looked at Mulan as a movie about a lesbian coming out.
Aspects of guilt or handwringing that one might expect in a film set in the '50s about women who discover their love for other women - a lot of these things are not in 'Carol.'
There's a book called 'You're Not a Stranger Here' by Adam Haslett - short stories, a lot of them are about mental illness and gay people - that classic combination. But they're really well-written, really powerful. It's pretty good.
We were talking about the kissing in the movie just recently. Clearly, it's pretty challenging material, but Ang said two men herding sheep was far more sexual than two men having sex on screen.
Nothing really prevented me from showing Catman as bi, but it's how I thought of him.
I hope 'Hellcat' is picked up again in years to come by people who realize just how queer it is: not just in its characters but its sensibility.
The characters I've played that people have noticed included a cross-dresser and a transsexual.
Hairspray is the only movie I made that's subversive, because they're doing it in every high school in America. A man's playing a woman, and two men sing a love song to each other.
