I did not see myself as a leading lady. I thought I was really funny-looking and I would never be the lead, and I certainly would never do film or television. I wanted to do theater. I wanted to be the grand dame of the American stage.
Well, if you're talking about the current climate, there's a lack of content in American film because I think people are deeply confused about their emotions, and they don't regret certain aspects of their own foreign policy.
I really woke up one morning and said, you know, 'I haven't seen a good film about the American Revolution. And all the ones I have seen haven't been successful, but I'm going to make a successful one.' Well, I wasn't able to do that.
In film, I was surprised when I first saw the movie 'Drive.' I said, 'Oh, God. It sounds great - I love it. Wow, this could be the soundtrack from 'American Gigolo' or 'Cat People.' But I'm surprised that the director would agree with a composer to w...
What I dislike about movie culture is that it often presents a parable of our problems - but the issues are all straightforward and the people are either nice or they're not. In real life, everyone falls between those perimeters, but not many America...
I don't think American independent films have ever really been particularly experimental, except for the original guys from the '60s who were huge influences, like Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, and Stan van der Beek. They were the true independents.
It's weird, because American films in the 1930s and '40s, particularly melodramas, were made for woman, from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford to Barbara Stanwyck to Katherine Hepburn, and for some reason we've taken a step backward in this sense.
My earliest memories of horror are 'Friday the 13th Part 2,' John Carpenter's 'The Thing,' 'Halloween,' 'An American Werewolf in London,' and 'A Nightmare On Elm Street'... and 'Hatchet' is so obviously inspired by those films that I may as well have...
The films that have influenced me and the films that have motivated me and inspired me were films that resonated, films that made me think after I saw them.
Sony could have $50 million and a sound stage and A-list actors and never make the same film. The constraints on this film became the essence of this film, became the power of this film.
People talk about making art films - experimental films. I can make an art film every day of the week. Nothing to it. What's difficult is to combine a commercial film with art.
The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.
All in all, I'd like to venture into film. Films are my staple diet, so I would love to be part of a feature film, independent film... it all just depends on the story and the people behind it, really.
I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.
I've been able to make some wonderful films, but sometimes you make films with great passion - great belief - and these films slightly don't work at the box office, and they become your favorite films.
I firmly believe that emotions are universal, and I know that when they connect with the audience, it works. There is no such thing as an entertaining or a serious film; there are good films and bad films. Good films will always find a vast audience.
I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.
I don't like horror films. Horror films in the sense of the way horror films are now, like 'Saw,' I don't like that, I don't.
I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.
Every film for every actor is a make-or-break film. I believe every film has the power to break you or make you. So, an actor will treat every film like his last film. That's the way we need to work, and that's the way you can drum up that passion ne...
I don't make films to win prizes. I make films to make films.
