When you get into a film, it is one story and one set development of a character, and you are able to delve into one character for a short period of time and discover everything about them.
With theater, depending on the audience, the show is different every night and really requires your constant concentration. With film, it's more possible to focus for shorter, more intense bits of time.
When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person's time, turns out to be the most valuable thing.
I have a hard time watching films and not thinking how I would play any part, whether it's a man or a woman.
I was very friendly with Jimi Hendrix because my boyfriend at the time, Tommy Weber, was making a film about him, so I would go to all of his shows.
When you shoot a film, you have very little time to waste, and I try to go into the character as soon as possible and stay there as much as I can.
The actual work of recording a record or making a film just requires that you consciously block the time out to do that and nothing else. That's what I do.
When you look at Darling and the Oscars, it has to be luck. It was a black and white film and it was the last time that there was a black and white Oscar.
A lot of the time the film chooses me. I'll be working and I'll get a call from my agent and I'll get the script and then tell him what I think.
My memoir is about my time in film and the decision to leave Hollywood, grow up, and stop pretending.
Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free.
Making a film is very hard work, and you live or die by the sword just a little bit every time you do it, but I wouldn't chuck it in.
TV has gotten perhaps better than your average film script, but at the same time, it's fun to give it all you've got for a few months and produce a story.
The benefit of film is that you're shooting something for an intense period of time - and then it's over, and you move on to something else. In TV, you're doing the same thing over and over.
Well I'm not much of a singer. But it's been a really nice time to do film, television, theater and have it all happening at once. That wasn't planned but it just happens.
I think the job of movie reviewing can be really tough. If a film has layers that need to be thought about, it's easy to get missed the first time around.
Even if my film does well, you will not see me blowing my own trumpet. There is no time to sit and dwell on whether it's done well or not done well.
I remember a time when I was younger, when if you had to see an actor, you had to go to the theatre and watch a film.
Clifford Stern: [on Lester's films] I can't watch his stuff. It's sub-mental.
If there's a British film in the marketplace that is successful on a worldwide basis - whether it's 'A Room with a View,' 'Four Weddings' or 'The Full Monty' - money follows, and everyone tries to emulate that success.
I've never made any money off of any of my films. Statement of fact. So without commercial work, I would be in big trouble.
