Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Hollywood always likes to create a star.
My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune.
It's harder to take care of kids than it is to make a movie.
What's the trick to writing a great female character? Make her human.
I always had good friends, but I did not feel like a cool girl, ever.
If the script is right, I'm not above doing a movie with broad appeal.
Catherine Keener really gets me. She and I have such a shorthand together.
I'd rather go for Scorsese and De Niro. I just think he was so much better.
I definitely feel like a native New Yorker. My personality was formed there.
The fact that I get to write and direct my own personal story is an amazing thing.
I'm not a producer and I don't even know the places my producer goes to, thankfully.
Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until its over.
Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until it's over.
I hear people talk in my head, and I write it down. I choose where they live and how they dress to be real.
I'm a director, but I gotta have the hair, the makeup and the heels. My mother would be appalled if I didn't dress up.
I'll write a character with a certain actor in mind, but then once I start casting, I have to forget about who I pictured.
I went to NYU for a year and a half, and I graduated from there and then years later went to Columbia for graduate school.
My grandma has said many of the things her character says. But she was much nicer! I made her meaner for dramatic purposes.
Hollywood is lacking realness in their female characters. I don't think I'm the only one who thinks that and wants to change it.
I would still encourage somebody, if they wanted to make a movie, to just go take a movie camera. That's clearly been shown to work.
I rarely need career advice because I don't have a career. No, that's not true. I can't really go far away while my kids are living with me.
I have a stack of scripts that I've read - I'm in the lucky position where I get offered things - but I haven't wanted to direct many of them.
The stories that I want to tell are completely, well somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.
The stories that I want to tell are completely, well, somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems.
To say you want to be a director is to risk sounding obnoxious, pretentious, arrogant, and I think women are more fearful of sounding that way than men are.
I'm somebody's ex-wife, and I did things that drove him nuts. And now I'm somebody's girlfriend, for many years, and I've got different things that drive him nuts.
I would still encourage somebody, if they wanted to make a movie, to just go take a movie camera. That's clearly been shown to work. It's just how do you get it seen?
I'm being photographed, worrying about my hair - and yet here I am, I've directed a feature film, why do I care about the way I look? Who cares? Does Tim Burton care? Does Joel Coen?
When I'm creating characters, I just want to create characters that I can relate to, and be as honest about them as people as I can be. That's what I want to see when I go to the movies.
If a woman gets insomnia, you never know where you're going to find her furniture the next morning. It's primal. We have so little we can control, but we can perfect the way our room looks.
If you keep the situations real, the characters' behavior will be real and honest, too. If they're suddenly robbing a bank and exchanging snappy dialogue, well, I wouldn't even know how to write that.
I thought I could make a sarcastic joke about it. But it's based on my own struggle with how much to give, how much it's really helping or not, and how foolish or not I feel. Giving sometimes backfires.
Marriages are so complicated that no one person is the culprit. But, I am really interested in class without really realizing that I am. It's more the manifestations of different classes that interest me.
I know I repeat myself in all my movies, but I just let it go, let it happen. Clearly, I'm not finished with that issue. But they seem to me like completely different movies. They're definitely coming from me.
If anything, I learned most from being a huge fan of his and watching movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan over and over again - that influenced the kind of movies that I wanted to make more than anything else.
I'm still shooting on low budgets, though none of my movies has lost money, and I rarely get sent anything that stars a guy or is a thriller or is seriously dramatic. And I would love the opportunity to do those things.
People say to me all the time that I threw some money into some guy's coffee cup [by accident, thinking they were poor]. People do make the same sort of mistake. I've made attempts to volunteer that have been calamitous!
When I was going away to school, I had a friend who took a liking to my family just a little too much. We couldn't get her out of the house. It took me saying to my parents, 'I don't want her here. I'm feeling replaced.'
When I hear that a project takes place out of town, the material better be terrific, and it has to come at the right time. My kids are getting older, so it's getting easier, but being a mother - it's a difficult thing to juggle.
I hear a lot of, "We want to make a movie with you." Then "No, we don't want to make this one. We want to make that other movie with you." I don't really get that and it's very frustrating. It angers me. Because my movies are my movies.
I'm sure it's more difficult for women to make movies, especially because, in general, the kind of movies women want to make aren't necessarily going to be blockbusters. But you know, there are so few women in so many positions of power.
I don't know where my next movie is going to get financed or if it will. I think every filmmaker is probably worried about that, unless their movie made a fortune. My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune. So yeah, it's scary.
That said, it was pretty awkward and a weird thing to shoot. Some women had a sense of humour about it and we'd laugh, but some were very serious and suspicious... like I might be doing something bad, or maybe they were just uncomfortable.
If I had cast someone else who didn't have that kind of timing, it would have been leaden and one note. But Ann [Morgan Guilbert] made her really human and really funny without being caricatured or over the top. She feels like a real person.
I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. Enough Said had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.
I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. 'Enough Said' had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.
I'm willing to give up a little control but not a lot. So I say I want the money, but when push comes to shove, I'm not sure I'll be able to compromise in order to make the big studio movie. Maybe something in between would be okay, like a low-budget studio film.
The movie is in my head and that's the movie. But I'd be crazy to not be flexible. I think because I have the movie in my head, I can be flexible. I know what's going to work and not work and I know, generally, what I can change and bend and have the movie still work.
I want the look of a movie to be secondary. I really want people to be engaged in the story and the characters and not think about a style or think about me or think about the director of photography and what a great job he's doing. I never feel like that should be there.
What are we taking from people and what do we give is a life-long struggle, I think, for most of us. Who are we? Do we like who we are? Do we know who we are? Do we care? Does anyone care? That's such a big topic. I could tackle that in many movies. So could other people.