I read a book called 'Transatlantic', which is a history of the great shipping lines. Also, of course, I had read about the Titanic and saw Leo drowning at the end of the 'Titanic' movie and all that stuff.
With most other genres, you need movie stars. With horror, you just need a story.
Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.
Naturally we need black men to give this movie serious credibility.
I feel the other element of a western is the land, which is very important in this movie. I mean the land is another character in the piece, actually.
I guess when somebody offers you a movie, you don't say no. That's what I've learned.
You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved because the movie is almost always bad when you do that.
I think you should make a movie that has an audience.
I'm a grandmother with dogs and nice friends here in the Rocky mountains. Ever see the movie A River Runs Through It? That's where I live. It's beautiful, no two ways about it.
We've had some really good guest stars. But I have to go with Alec Baldwin as my favorite. He is so neat and such a movie star. He's handsome and quirky. I was in heaven the week he was on the set.
So many things have to come together to get a creatively successful and financially successful film. Sometimes you'll have a movie that you're very proud of, and you think it transcended all of your expectations, but it doesn't come out at the right time. I have done movies that have never been released. That can be depressing.
The musicals that I loved, growing up - many, many. 'Singing in the Rain,' of course, is a classic, I love 'Meet Me in St. Louis.' I love 'Funny Face,' Stanley Donen's beautiful movie. It's really countless for me.
When I'm working on a movie, I'm in my trailer playing guitar. And then on the road, I read scripts and think of... it just keeps both fires burning. I kind of need both.
It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.
I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.
I'm so critical of myself. I'm actually really, really proud of the film. It's really cool to see a movie at Sundance because everybody is so supportive.
When I was in college, there were dollar movie nights. I went to see 'The Long Goodbye,' which was based on one of Chandler's books but was contemporary and set in Los Angeles in 1973. I loved the movie, which motivated me to read the book.
I don't want to be in a movie with 20 minutes of dialogue and then stand around while the robots start explosions.
I use to watch like maybe three or four movies, five days out of the week. I was a movie buff, but I really didn't know what it was like behind the scenes, or the whole political process of it.
I just want to make one really good movie a year. And when I die, to know I was honest as an artist.
The first movie that ever scared me, I feel like it wasn't a scary movie. I feel like it was 'Dennis the Menace' or something.
I developed that for a long time. I also developed 'Sugar Sweet Science' at New Line and that didn't happen. That was a boxing movie. And between all that there were a couple of other things.
If the movie is good then great, but if it's not then God, I feel so bad for that person with their face fifty feet tall, all blown up. Some people would be happy with that, that as long as their face was out there they're stoked about it. I'm not like that.
I thought we were making a nice little movie. That's how it was regarded by everyone else, too.
Showing your movie to an audience... it's like your kid doing a piano recital. 'Just let it not fail. Please.'
I grew up in Middle America and I don't think my family was very funny, but I watched 'The Princess Bride.' I always wanted to be an actor. I didn't know anything about it. I'd never seen any plays or anything and I watched that movie over and over and over again.
I wanted to make these people real, not like they were in a painting. Like these are people who don't know they're in a period movie. Those concerns are incredibly immediate.
I remember at the premiere of my second movie I started crying. I thought, I'm so bad that I either have to stop this and do something else or learn what I'm doing.
When I shoot I'll take my family with me - one movie a year and then the rest of the time at home.
I had no idea that it was gonna take off the way it did. I thought we made a good movie.
I believe if you come out of a movie and the first thing you say is, 'The cinematography was beautiful,' it's a bad movie.
I'm not trying necessarily to become a movie star; that wouldn't be bad but that's not the aim. I'm just trying to do interesting things and go into areas where I've not been before.
I also care that the public are getting their 12 dollars worth when they go to a movie, and that they're not coming out not wanting to ever see a movie with me in it again.
The reason they don't make movies for adults and for people which are the largest bulge of the population is because they are not usually going to the movie the first weekend. They take a while to learn about it, probably word of mouth. It takes a lot of money to release a picture.
In my late 20s, I realized that I had a very clear social conscience and strong opinions about things like diversity, equality, and education, and while I tried to become more politically literate, I just couldn't catch on. It felt like I had walked into a movie that had already started, and no one would explain what had happened.
Why is being a woman so surprising? There are two sexes. A man and a woman. So, if it's not a man in a movie, what else was it going to be?
