I feel too strongly about rearranging reality in a movie. It gives me peace.
— Alexandra Cassavetes
I think vampires are different from human beings, but they're sentenced to eternity on this planet. They have the same confusion about love and permanence, integrity, and denial. These qualities really are the same in vampire characters as in humans. I think they're universal themes.
I'm not cynical, but I don't really want to have a boyfriend or husband again.
I tell myself, 'If I can wake up each day and be excited about what I'm doing, then I must be happy.' But then again, maybe I'm in denial.
I don't know about relationships. Maybe I'm supposed to travel and make films and meet people and have adventures instead.
There are so many people I know who could be the greatest film-maker but who will never get the chance to make a movie; it's all about what somebody is going to make back. There are not a lot of romantic ideas about making movies anymore.
I think vampires would want to find a way to stay attached to the living, the way human beings do, and that is through love, interrelations and meaning.
I didn't plan to be a director until I was 35. For years I wanted to do anything but!
People are fascinated with eternal life and physical power - the idea of having no vulnerability. We all feel small and powerless in the world at times, so the temptation to be a vampire is compelling.
I think of making a movie in such a romantic way.
It's a bloody shame that all the video stores have gone, I'll tell you. Everything's so mechanical now. It's all so if-you-liked-this-then-you'll-like-this. There's no picking something out, or finding some brilliant person to open up new worlds for you.
I sort of forgot about 'Z Channel' after it went off the air in 1989, but once Jason Resnick of Focus Features made the suggestion, I became obsessed all over again. I still am. I'll probably be this way until I'm 80, babbling about 'Z Channel.'
I went to this Episcopalian school, and one day I came home and asked my mom, 'What religion are we?' She looked at me and said, 'We're artists.'
I just want to make something that is true to itself and that interests me; otherwise, how can I have the audacity to think it's going to interest anybody else?
I think at its most mature, love is a very bourgeois state. There is something about luxuriating in the nest of love that people fall into naturally.
I think the reason vampire movies have been so popular over time is that they share so many parallels with human beings.
Love is a component of many different things - the baggage you bring, the moment, what you need in your life, seeing someone as a portal for understanding everything, and all the intensity that brings. It's not something to count on and act like it's a stable thing.
I've noticed that when people make vampire movies, they're always determining which of the rules they're going to stick to and which they'll abandon.
The vampire movies I embraced as a kid used vampirism as a metaphor that expressed deep sadness and a lot of human qualities.
It's sweet to hear, but anyone who says that they want to be the next John Cassavetes is crazy. He had it so tough. No one would want to walk a step in his shoes. Believe me - I wouldn't.
My taste in films doesn't lead financers to think they are going to make a zillion dollars.
I wanted to make an adult vampire film, not something for children.
