Biography

Is a longtime friend of Brian De Palma, original director of 1976's Carrie (1976) which she remade in 2013.

Directed two actors in Oscar nominated performances: Hilary Swank and Chloë Sevigny. Swank won the award for Boys Don't Cry (1999).

Spent years developing "Silent Star", which would have been about one of early Hollywood's infamous scandals, the murder of silent film director and actor William Desmond Taylor. By the end of 2003, Peirce had the film cast with Annette Bening, Hugh Jackman and Ben Kingsley, only to balk when the studio asked her to make a $30-million movie for $20 million.

Peirce is engaged to Evren Savci, who teaches gender studies at San Francisco State College.

Her younger half-brother, Brett, enlisted in the Army at 18 and served in Iraq. It prompted her to develop and direct the 2008 military drama Stop-Loss (2008).

You talk to any director, it's tough. It's tough to make movies that you love.

I like to go for the reality, I like to go for what's underneath. And I don't even judge it. But that isn't what all Hollywood movies are. That's an example where my success in Boys Don't Cry (1999) brought me this great Hollywood career and all these offers that I really appreciate, but I really have a very particular thing that I like doing. I love real emotion, I love real drama.

(On The Godfather (1972)) It showed me that I can take that love of the gangster movie and I can screen it through a family drama. In both my movies, family is really important, violence is really important. I'm really interested in the psychological and the authentic portrayal of violence-particularly violence that comes out of emotions. Before "The Godfather", I don't know that you could have such a violent psychological film that was that broadly entertaining.

We've had these conversations about being a woman in the business and how [expletive] it is and how you're not treated the same... But it's heartbreaking because it's a lifetime. How many more movies could I have made? How many more actors could I have worked with? And you know, it would have been more. When you're young, you feel invincible... But as you get older you start grieving a little. You're like, 'Wow, that's a lost career.'

[re failure to make queer romantic sex comedy "Butch Academy"] That's not surprising given that it was very queer. It had transmen transitioning, it had butches and straight men sharing advice about how to please women. It crosses some boundaries.