My plan B has always been to make a film about people who talk a lot.

When you have a film that's acclaimed, there's a tendency to go big or get serious or something, but I had an impulse to do the opposite.

I admire people who can just brazenly go through the world.

Yes, but Hollywood is the strangest place in that they'll torpedo their own film to prove an emotional point.

'Meadowland' was the reason I got 'The Handmaid's Tale,' and probably my experience in cinematography helped. Everything was like a stepping stone to the next thing.

It's a very tricky job we have as DPs, where you are expected to make something that really is an emotional art but also needs to be technically spot on. You're often given a very small window of time to achieve it. People sometimes expect it to be even quicker and forget that there's a schedule for a reason.

There are many legendary DPs that I admire, some of whom have a very strong signature, but I'm not sure I want to be the DP where you see my work and say 'Oh, Reed shot that.'

I actually carried a Panavision Platinum and a G2 when I was seven months pregnant for a film called 'Little Birds,' and the whole movie was handheld. And we were shooting in the desert. That's a 35-millimeter camera. It's huge, probably at least 50, 55 pounds, and I did all my own operating.

I have a playlist for every project that I do. I made one for 'Handmaid' before I got the job.

I love strong women like Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep, and Charlize Theron.

Huge studio movies are handed over to a man with less experience before they're handed over to a woman with less experience. That's a fact. But I think it's not just about men not hiring women: it's about women not hiring women, too.

When I got on my first set, I watched what the cinematographer was doing, and at that level in film school, the cinematographer has the most control. They're the one looking through the viewfinder, carrying the camera, framing the shots.

One of the color combos that I really love is the tones of technicolor, which older movies would have, these tones of blue and red in them.

There was a movie that was made about 'The Handmaid's Tale.' And I never watched it on purpose because I didn't want to... I just didn't want to know.

My biggest wish is that I would have more time with my husband and my boys.

I started a business with my cousins in Fire Island called 'Wagoneers.' Since there are no cars on the island, we would hustle people at the ferry docks to bring their luggage to their houses in our wagons for a large fee.

Eventually, when I got the 'Meadowland' script, I saw something in it that made me think I could make something special out of it, something that could work with my style. Emotionally, I connected to it. I thought, 'If I feel this way just imagining it, maybe we can make that happen on screen and make people feel something when they watch it.'

I learned a lot while I was ACing and gripping for other DPs as I was coming up.

After graduating, I was shooting as well as working as a key grip, and I often found myself the only female out of the whole crew, except for producers and the occasional AC.

When I was an undergraduate in Film & TV at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, most of the projects I shot had male directors, and only a few had female directors.

Being a cinematographer taught me a lot. I got to expedite the visions of many directors and learned how to navigate many styles and worlds.

As a cinematographer or director, I'm always looking for projects that are able to say a lot with the actor's expressions.

I read it in college as an assignment. I didn't think about it at the time. But when I heard there was a 'The Handmaid's Tale' pilot, I freaked out.

There is something to be said for one vision and following one vision through. I do think it's something TV will catch up to at some point and realize, 'Wow, we're in the Golden Age of Television right now; we've taken television to another level, but now let's take it to an even higher level where it is one vision throughout a whole season.'