As director of the stage musical The Lion King - which has just passed the 80-million-ticket mark for productions around the world - Julie Taymor is one of the most powerful women in theatre.
And to those who might question her gender being specified, Taymor says there is still a difference. "There are still very few women directing in theatre - more in London, but not in New York. And still not so many in movies," she adds. Her film version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream opened in Britain last weekend.
"I think it is so much harder for women to get the opportunity. You know that I've only ever done one show [ The Lion King] in London? I'd be happy to direct here, but I've never been asked."
The dominance of male directors is often attributed to sexist producers or the difficulty of combining work and family life, but Taymor, provocatively, thinks it may also be because women have better artistic taste.
"I know a lot of women who won't do schlock. People say: 'Why don't they give women the big Hollywood blockbusters?' But I think it takes so much for a woman to get to that place that they have to have a passion or a story they really want to tell. When women fail, they don't get another chance as easily."
Taymor, 62, has recent experience of painful failure. While The Lion King has become one of the most celebrated pieces of modern theatre, her CV also includes one of the most notorious: in 2011 she was the original director of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, until she was replaced during the troubled pre-opening period that included 180 preview performances - the greatest number in Broadway history.
After lengthy litigation over the credit and recompense she should receive for her work on that musical, Taymor prefers - either for legal or psychological reasons - not to refer to it by name, although she notes that a male director might have endured less controversy.