I've spent many birthdays on a movie set, all great days.
I always dreamed of being a voice in a Disney movie, and even in those dreams, I never once dreamed of being a princess. I just wanted to be a voice.
I can't wait for summer in the city! I love all the free activities in the parks that become available to us New Yorkers. Yoga and movie screenings in Bryant Park, concerts in Central Park - there's so much more available to the New York community in the summer! And everyone just seems to smile more.
We did the original 'Stargate' as an independent movie. It was a surprise success. Shortly before the movie came out, the financiers who were frightened the movie might not do well sold the film to MGM. When the film came out, it was a hit and spawned TV shows.
We were producing 'La La Land'... and then we weren't. So it was a very painful topic, but I'm happy the movie was as successful as it was. And, of course, I wish we had produced it.
Even if there were no illegal copying, the advent of digital distribution will put a lot of stress on the movie and music industry. When the distribution costs comes down, that puts more price pressure on the rest of the cost.
There just is exponentially more money in the movie business than in the music business. As a result there are more people involved in the creative process.
Serial killers are everywhere! Well, perhaps not in our neighborhood, but on our television screens, at the movie theatres, and in rows and rows of books at our local Borders or Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
I think that came out of watching all those serious movies for all that time. If you watch a movie like Zero Hour, Sterling Hayden is pretty funny, and so are the guys in the cockpit.
I guess historically, drag queens were imitating movie stars and luminaries. It's kind of nice to have a movie star imitating a drag queen.
You'd be surprised how many movie stars still care about the work.
When I started making films, like almost every filmmaker, I think, you're just so excited to be able to make a movie that you'll do anything.
I can't tell you how hard it is to make a dark-humored movie in Hollywood.
I finished the movie a month ago in downtown Los Angeles. I had a lot of fun doing it.
My dad was born in Chicago in 1908... his parents came from Russia. They settled in Chicago, where they lived in a little tiny grocery store with eight or nine children - in the backroom all together - and my grandmother got the idea to go into the movie business.
It used to be that you kind of got pigeonholed into one thing - you're either a stage actor or a TV actor or a movie actor. Today, there's a lot of crossover with film actors doing television, which never happened before, so those lines are a little bit more blurred than they used to be.
I was not a kid who watched every movie. I watched a very small number of movies over and over again.
When you find something where you can give people a message and still make it an exciting movie, you get very, very excited about something. You probably even work harder than you normally do.
The process of making a movie is what I love. I thrive on that. It's an exciting miracle, a mad adventure. I love being part of it.
'Diary of a Teenage Girl' was my first American movie. It was my first movie in an American accent. It's based on a graphic novel, which was written in 2002 by someone called Phoebe Gloeckner. It was turned into a play by Marielle Heller, who then wrote it as a screenplay for Sundance Labs.
I never said I wanted to be a movie star.
The Rock is one of the biggest movie stars in the world. So give the guy his due.
But it is funny, because I saw Unbreakable recently and it's a strange movie, I didn't mind it, and it's got some interesting things going on.
I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia, an abnormal decrease of sugar in the blood. Eventually I learned to eat five small meals a day. Now if I'm making a movie and get hungry, I call time out to eat some crackers.
The truth is when you have a movie that was as successful as 'Chronicle' was, it's not as quick of a process. There are a lot more voices coming in and saying 'This is what the sequel should be' because there's a bigger expectation and a bigger fear of failure. And that's really what's going on with 'Chronicle 2.'
'The Lego Movie?' I've never heard of it.
'The Matrix' is a movie that is all about glamour. I could do a whole talk on 'The Matrix' and glamour. It was criticized for glamorizing violence, because, look - sunglasses and those long coats, and, of course, they could walk up walls and do all these kinds of things that are impossible in the real world.
I look at decisions like - it's like an Indiana Jones movie. The guy comes to a rope ladder, and he's being chased. There's uncertainty on the other side, but he knows when he gets to the other side, he's going to take his machete and cut the rope ladder behind him. He has no retreat.
When I was younger I wanted to be a big movie star who'd get to be funny on talk shows and then I wanted to retire and write science fiction.
One very important element for me to make a movie is, it has to be unique and different from any other.
Leave a movie audience inspired, and they will want to ingrain that movie into their lives with the toys, branded food products, soundtracks, and clothing they buy.
What 'Short Term 12' did was it gave me the confidence to explore my intuition more. The healing process that came for me for making that movie and then sharing it with people - I was able to see, first hand, that movies can have a healing power and they can teach us things.
Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that - and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut.
So I think that in the beginning of your career you're just looking to work. Luckily for me, my first movie was 'Rabbit Hole' and I got to work with incredible people, a Pulitzer prize winning writer, John Cameron Mitchell, and all the actors involved. So it's tough, man, because you want to have credibility.
When I go to a movie and can't figure it out, I'm just thrilled.
I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie.
