I love the way L A. leaves you alone. I can go home, read all day, and nobody bugs me.
— Jodie Foster
I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.
It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.
I'm interested in directing movies about situations that I've lived, so they are almost a personal essay about what I've come to believe in.
I don't know why people think child actresses in particular are screwed up. I see kids everywhere who are totally bored. I've never been bored a day in my life.
I think 'destiny' is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern.
Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.
So, yes, there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.
Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.
I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it's a difficult thing.
I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that's kind of a natural progression. But I'm definitely drawn to it. It's probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.
I spent a lot of time not in school, so I didn't have deep relationships with kids my own age.
I have, in some ways, saved characters that have been marginalized by society by playing them - and having them still have dignity and still survive, still get through it.
I fantasize about having a manual job where I can come home at night, read a book and not feel responsible for what will happen the next day.
I am the luckiest filmmaker I know.
But now I really don't want to work unless I really, really care about a project.
I read more than I do anything else, probably. I read about three books a week.
People are always surprised when I say that I'm an atheist.
My mom was always late. It drove me crazy as a child. So I'm always on time - or early.
Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.
I prefer to commit 100 per cent to a movie and make fewer films, because it takes over your life.
I'd like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.
The movies I made when I was 14 or 15, I have a hard time looking at those. Those were the awkward years. I don't know if anybody can look at something they did when they were 14 and not wince.
Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.
I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.
I wish people could get over the hang-up of subtitles, although at the same time, you know, that's kind of why I'm kind of pro dubbing.
I think Anna and the King is a look at Asia from the Asian perspective, reflecting the Asian experience, which is very rare.
I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it.
I had to take my makeup off at work every night. I wasn't allowed to do it at home because my mom said that when your work day is done, you're done with work.
I don't know if I see myself as really an action hero, but I like doing physical movies and I like doing movies where the writing is very lean.
By the first week of shooting, you know exactly where your film is heading based on the psychology of your director.
Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Any actor working a long time should know how a shot is set up, where to place themselves, how to handle the lines. I'm a member of the crew, like the best boy, the electrician. What I'm good at is making eyes at the camera.
My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.
Acting, for me, is exhausting. I'm always more energized by directing. It's more intense to direct. I can pop in and express myself, then pop out again. It's a huge passion for me.
It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.
Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.
You develop a third eye where you kind of know where they are in a room at all times but no matter how vigilant you are as a parent, at some point, you'll look around a room and can't find them and there's a searing pain that goes through your body.
The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.
My kids are young and my life with them is really stimulating and really full and significant.
I'm kind of a chatterbox and I talk really fast.
I want to be inspiring to myself, to my kids, my family, and my friends.
I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.
I love European movies and I kind of grew up on European films.
I guess I've played a lot of victims, but that's what a lot of the history of women is about.
I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.
But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.
