I wanted to try every style available to me - large productions, small productions, studio films, low-budget. You just can't sit around and wait for every big-budget film to come along.
I got a manager, and I thought, since I was going out on auditions, I should do this for a living. Then there was this moment on set when I realized I was having a lot of fun, and I really wanted to do this forever. I want to do different stuff, but I want it all to be just as good as this film. I want to be consistent.
I would be surprised if they gave Meryl Streep her third Oscar for a film as light as 'Julie and Julia,' although, of course, Katharine Hepburn's third Oscar came with a very light performance from her in 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.'
I could, of course, have written about the film world and the jealousy there and the frequent belief that others don't have talent. But, for some reason, it just struck me to write about art.
When I was a teenager, I thought maybe I'll be a filmmaker, making film documentaries. My dream when I was a girl was I would be hired by 'National Geographic' or work with David Attenborough, but it didn't happen. I became a model.
On 'Darjeeling,' I was on set every day and I acted as the second unit director and a producer on that film. I was there throughout the whole process. On 'Moonrise Kingdom,' I showed up for one day.
The idea of Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Dracula, all I could think of was, why haven't they done this with him before? It's such a genius idea. 'Dracula' has always been done as film, so it's been an hour and 40 minutes. What we're done is 10 hours of 'Dracula,' so you have a lot of freedom with all the different mythologies and nuances.
I had been accepted to film school, but my parents couldn't afford it, and yet they made too much money for me to get a scholarship.
I'm pretty interested in documentary film, and I'd watch almost anything. At some point, I stumbled upon 'shoot interviews' and found out that wrestlers were now talking openly about things that were going on in wrestling that we as viewers were not privy to. This fascinated me.
To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.
Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.
When you're doing a different kind of film, you have to bring a different kind of attitude; you have to bring a different kind of concentration.
The screenplay has to be gripping. That's when the film will work. Then, I see how much I can relate to the character I'm playing.
The first Superman film took up a huge chunk of our lives, but it was a wonderful time for us. We were young, my daughter was little, we were filming in London for a year, so we became like a close family.
In the theatre you can change things ever so slightly; it's an organic thing. Whereas in film you only have that chance on the day, and you have no control over it at all.
It's not easy for a film to tell a story of the experiences of an entire society. However, from an individual's perspective, it is possible to tell one aspect of an entire society's story.
For film and TV, try to have a more conversational tone. For stage, you'll need better diction and bigger vocal production.
I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.
Knowing that the 'Sex and the City' chicks now rack up almost two centuries between them, why do some of us fuss and hiss about a bit of retouching on their forthcoming film poster?
When you're struggling to get a feature film off the ground, there's no big overarching tenure plan or anything like that.
Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're like, 'But you don't know how to drive the bus.'
Gosh, for me, when I was 15 or 16 years old, I was just starting to understand ideas and film and things like that. And then, you go see a movie like 'The Matrix' that absolutely blows your mind. It's not just trying to entertain you, but it's also trying to explore something about human nature and ask some really deep questions.
Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.
I've been on the board of UCLA Film and TV School, and I went to UCLA. I realized that the same movie theater that was there when I went to school, 30 years later is the same movie theater in the same condition. There was an opportunity to refurbish an existing room, and I jumped at the opportunity.
For me, some of the happiest moments on a live-action film are the awkward moments. One actor says something to another actor. They didn't expect that performance from that actor; that affects their return performance.
I'm doing a film called 'Black Mass' where I play James Bulger. The reason to play him is obvious to me. He's a fascinating character. It's not like anything I've done before on that level. I'm very excited to slide into that skin for a little bit.
Peter Fleming was a famous English traveler, explorer and adventurer, whose non-fiction books were hugely successful. My father owned signed copies of all of them - he and Peter Fleming had become acquainted over some detail of set design at the Korda film studio in Shepperton - and I had read each of them with breathless adolescent excitement.
I would like to explore comedy, I want to do more theatre, and I definitely want a future in film.
When you make a film for a million and a half dollars and it opens at 20 million, the next question out of everyone's mouth is, 'When's the next one, when's the next one, when's the next one?'
That's the best thing about being an actor. If you're in a baseball movie, you walk away knowing way more about baseball, or if you're in a sci-fi film, you learn way more about Comic-Con, and so I loved all that.
I grew up on a farm and didn't have connections, and I had a dream that I believed in, and I felt passionate about it, so if I can instill hope into somebody too with the film, that's what I most want.
Whenever I'm doing any film, I'm always just happy to have a job and I always just put 110% of myself into it.
With a franchise movie, it's got to turn the wheels of the industry, and the studio has to have them. So you start with a release date. They say we're going to make a new 'Bourne' film, and it comes out summer of X. Then they start on a script, and invariably, the script is not ready in time.
I never want to make the kind of film whose impact ends when the audience leaves the cinema.
The world does not want to see a Pixar film that's not great.
There's no wrong way to experience a film.