I think it's always hard to find great roles, no matter what age you are. So I always say to people, 'You have to remember that Hollywood is in the business of making movies that they can sell tickets to; they're not in the business of finding great roles for actors.'

We love making movies. We got into the business to make movies. At the end of the day, whether you're doing a low budget film or a big budget film, you want it to do well and you want people to see it. That's the whole point. You want to put some kind of message in it.

Making movies is both entirely ludicrous and incredibly hard. It's a preposterous way to spend your time. You give up a lot for the privilege of doing it, and one of the things you get are relationships of immense trust that you see forged in situations of immense stress.

Unless you have a real passion for making movies, then don't bother. I had to carry energy and light into every meeting, only to be told, 'We don't want you.' I couldn't take it personally. You just have to wait, and live for those moments when the casting director likes you.

I love making movies, and being in any that I can be in. I'd like to be in those giant movies, as the fifth or sixth lead, and have three or four killer scenes. You don't have the responsibility of the entire movie being on you. I like those roles. I'm shooting for the middle.

I'm a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn't miss it.

I never thought I was going to make a movie about men. I've always thought we don't have enough movies about women, and if I spent my whole life making movies only about women, there still wouldn't be enough movies about women, so that's a wonderful thing to dedicate my career to.

I've had nine of my books adapted to film, and almost all were enjoyable. I've been very lucky with Hollywood, and look forward to more movies being adapted. But I don't get involved in that process. I know nothing about making movies and I stay away from it and hope for the best.

I have grown up reading Marvel Comics and Marvel movies with their intricately woven storylines. It is fascinating to see how Marvel has created characters and stories that resonate so well with audiences across the globe, making movies at a scale that one had never before imagined.

Making movies is about control. You need to control your narcissism in the first place, and you need to be disciplined enough to understand the reason for the film. You need to follow the agenda of the film, not a personal agenda or that of the studio. Or, worst of all, of the actors.

When you're in L.A., and you're making movies and that kind of stuff, you don't really get a sense sometimes, I think, what the fans are like. But you go into a room with 4,000 people or 2,000 people who know your movie, know the lines, and know the characters; it's really a lot of fun.

Acting is a great way to make a living, especially when I consider what my alternatives were and probably still are. I mean, you are only making movies. It is a lot less pressure than being a surgeon; although it seemed like the only other thing that I was qualified for was manual labour.

Men starting out have so many options of filmmakers to connect with artistically and be shepherded by and collaborate with. I just didn't have an older, more experienced me to help me. So I hope all the women making movies now are aware we have the opportunity to be that to new filmmakers.

It was very hard to make 'Funny Face' in Paris because making movies is difficult and making a movie in a city that was glorious, that was unique and surprising, to get it, to put it on film you have to make choices and reject a lot of things so you're always wondering: 'Am I doing it right?'

The studios gotta start making more stuff where black folks get quality stuff. But I can't trip about that because I've been making movies for 35 years, and I've played everything from an old lady to a donkey, so I can't be on here talking about, 'They don't give us enough roles' and diversity.

Hollywood is a boys' club, and that's something I thought was a stereotype - and it's not. That really shocked me. Still shocks me. Everyone's helping their buddies out and pressing their buddies and playing tennis with their buddies and making movies with their buddies, and that grosses me out.

I'm pretty upfront about my love and admiration for the military. One of the perks of making movies is that you get to sort of follow your own passions, and I believe quite passionately that we don't pay enough attention and respect to our veterans. Not just our wounded veterans, but all veterans.

I grew up loving watching movies, and at a certain point, I started to become fascinated with making movies. Then I went to film school, and I got to dabble with different aspects of moviemaking, and I ended up settling heavily into editing - editing was what I was really adept at, had a passion for.

The representation of gay characters on screen is important for us all to think about because there are sadly too few representations of gay characters on screen in mainstream cinema. If Marvel starts making movies about gay superheroes, then we'll be in a really great place. We're not at that place.

Number one, I am a true movie maker. And, you know, I am very much - I don't want to say infatuated, but I'm impressed with the art of making a movie and invoking emotion. You know, when I started making movies, I thought it was easy, and then when I got into it, I was like, 'This is not easy at all.'

I'm very much into the costuming of any character that I portray and it's one of the great things about making movies is it's a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about for this instance your character's costume and what that might tell about your character.

I never thought of what I was doing as a way to sell the NFL. I was making movies about a sport that I loved, about players and coaches that I respected. I wanted to convey my love of the game through film. And most artists convey their love through art. And my art and my love was expressed through film.

I guess I was just always one of those guys who asked those fundamental questions: 'Who am I? What's this for? Why? What does this mean? Is this real?' All these pretty basic questions. I like making movies about people who are self-conscious in that way, and are trying to feel their way through the world.

I am trying to do the best work I possibly can and making movies that will have resonance for years to come. I think if you try for an Oscar or a goal like that, the more people are going to see it as transparent. It's not on my radar. If it happens, great, but I'm happy to continue working as I am, really.

Making movies is not rocket science. It's about relationships and communication and strangers coming together to see if they can get along harmoniously, productively, and creatively. That's a challenge. When it works, it's fantastic and will lift you up. When it doesn't work, it's almost just as fascinating.

Making movies is a very different experience in a lot of ways. It's difficult when you're used to owning the copyright and having a landlord's possessory rights - I rent my plays to the companies that do them and, if I'm upset, I can pull the play. But the only two directors I've worked with are pretty great.

The downside to making movies at a gallop like we did with 'Wish You Were Here' is that we're shooting four or five scenes in a day, and it's very exhilarating, but you worry at the end of the day that you missed some details because you were moving too quick, and you just gotta trust and be ready straightaway.

I look up and go, 'I'm living in the world I visualized a long time ago.' From making movies, to the Film Society, to just being in a film world. It's a life that I wanted to inhabit. I think everyone has the opportunity to do that in this world - it's just, are you gonna work for it, and how much does it mean to you?

I was going to make movies. I was the one in the family who was always rolling the video camera, making movies of my brothers around town, and then screening them for my parents. I still would love to make movies someday... that's something that really means a lot to me, and I know I'll have the chance to do it one day.

We knew people in Cleveland who had been making movies for 20 years that nobody sees. Every couple of years, they make a little small movie on their own, and it goes to some minor festivals, and that's it. Four years later, they do it again. That's a fulfilling life for some filmmakers, and they're happy to work that way.

If you're strutting around Beverly Hills and hitting up these big industry parties every night when you're not making movies, then it's going to eventually consume you. But for me, I live most of my life in Boston. I do things no different from the way my buddies back home do them, except when I go to work, I go to a film set.

I'll say, what makes me happy about making movies is, every once in a while through movies we find a kind of honesty. There's an honesty in fiction that's as effective or even more powerful than the honesty of our lives. We can find something that's genuinely true, like a chemistry between people or a statement that speaks to an audience.

It seems to me that one thing people do over and over again is try to figure out how to get married, stay married, fall in love, how to rekindle all this stuff. It seems to me to be a pretty eternal theme so I don't know if you can get typecast from making movies about men relating to women. It seems to be what is going on on the planet a lot.

I mean, I love L.A. - I love living here. But I wish that we could make things without the need to hit a home run every single time. It's a unique thing to Hollywood that if you don't do that every time, then you're considered a failure. But it's like, 'Well, are you making movies to be successful? Or are you making movies to learn something?'

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