I grew up in a family of fighter pilots, and I have a real kindred spirit to that kind of fast-moving aggression and momentum.
— Patty Jenkins
We want to teach a better way and to be a hero, and there's no one like Wonder Woman to do it.
I was thinking I would love to make something that is a successful film that everybody sees, but I wasn't thinking about the actual dollar amount. I just wanted to make a great film that people responded to. That's always a good ambition because you'll never totally hit it.
I remember when I read in the news that 'Wonder Woman' had been cast, and my heart sank. I had been talking to the studio for so long about doing it, and I was like, 'Well, 'that's that.' I'm sure we wouldn't have made the same choice.
A woman doesn't have to direct a woman's film and a man doesn't have to direct a man's film; otherwise, where would we be?
I want to make great films in my lifetime, and I really want to make a great film about Wonder Woman.
Superhero movies are so famous because of the metaphor that they trigger in one's self about who you could be if things were different.
I'd just sort of gravitated toward the arts, and I had always loved music and really loved theater, even though I didn't want to act. For some reason, being in Kansas, you can either be a graphic artist or a visual artist, so I decided, 'I guess I'm going to be a painter.'
Any sympathy won for Aileen Wuornos based on a lie is not sympathy at all. The question is, can we have sympathy for the circumstances of someone's life? That's what I was interested in.
You do what you believe in.
I think that, for whatever reason, we've gotten to a place where, particularly in Hollywood, things have to be very pat. Like 'I'm a good guy. I'm a bad guy.'
When people are crass or loudmouthed, it's not because they don't give a damn. It's from fear and insecurity.
If a film is based on a true story and you don't use anyone's name, you can do what you like.
Frankly, I like DVDs having lots of things on it, but I have issues with it as well, too.
There are a lot of pretty actresses in Hollywood who try to act tough, and the audience laughs.
I try not to buy into that whole, crazy 'you are what you drive' mentality here, but I wouldn't want to be seen in a Ford Fiesta - you know what I mean?
Hollywood can't stand heroes who aren't sympathetic.
What I never want to do is start phoning it in and making things just to show that I can keep my foot in the door and do big movies.
I think you need to have a strong vision of your own.
I don't think I focused on the financial part of it, but definitely, my ambition is to be great, and that always meant that the sky was the limit for what I was hoping to do.
Every villain has their belief system that makes perfect sense to them.
Who should make a great movie about Wonder Woman? It should be somebody who loves Wonder Woman. And I know that I'm that. So let's go and try.
It's not about superheroes. This is the method of universal storytelling that all people have... To me, they're the same as the Greek myths or the Roman myths or religious figures of every religion. These are common characters that we use to express stories about being a better person or what you would do when faced with various things.
I've been influenced by a lot of films. And a lot of them are the typical interesting, artsy films. But I haven't talked enough about how there are those few big blockbusters that really rock your world.
My father was a fighter pilot, so I moved around the world when I was young. Then I ended up in Kansas.
Hollywood is driven by beautiful faces. Always has been.
It's not palm trees and neon signs in Florida; it's strip malls, highways, hot sun beating down on you.
That was devastating to me: how a bright, energetic kid could turn doomed and desperate.
I know that a man's version of a tough woman is very different from a woman's version.
I have more information than anybody's ever had about this case. I have 7,000 letters from Aileen Wuornos and all the letters between her and her girlfriend.
Strangely, I have a huge aversion to movies that try to teach healthy people an abusive lesson about the darkness in the world.
I have a real pet peeve for women who play damaged characters but don't look damaged.
I was a closet Journey fan when I was growing up.
I have a long love of superhero films, and I'd been saying over and over again to my agents at CAA that I'd like to do one.
I can't take on the history of 50 percent of the population just because I'm a woman.
I'm excited to see her power really soar and us have a great time having a great Wonder Woman in our world.
It was harder, I think, to get attention for the films that I wanted to do than I expected it to be.
There's an idea that action movies are more attractive to one gender than the other or different kinds of people or whatever. The truth is action is not any different than any other part of a story.
Being the person who gets to make a movie about Wonder Woman, of course, I take that incredibly seriously. I am a huge Wonder Woman fan, and the aspiration comes totally naturally to me.
To be a director, you need to be reliable, on time, confident, calm, all of those things you see demonstrated in the military.
As soon as I went to painting school in New York, I took an experimental film course, and everything clicked and came together. I realized my love of music and drama and the visual arts all came together.
Making a movie is such a huge commitment of emotion and time that I didn't want to be beholden to doing it for money.
We're all always wondering about our own limits, what we're capable of.
I'd spent summers growing up in Mississippi, so I had an idea of what the South is like.
I had to adapt to other worlds, and that helped to educate me that we are all basically the same.
De Niro didn't gain all that weight to play Jake La Motta just to prove he could get fat - every single one of those transformative things is grounded in the character.
The need to look behind the curtain is great for a filmmaker. But whether you want to deconstruct what you like as a viewer, what you like and don't like, I wish we could let films stand on their own a little bit.
It's been my experience with damaged people: they don't wake up every day and wallow in the bad things that have happened to them.
It's rare that a character film is easy to fund.
Movies always had a captive audience, so they were able to do deeper, more complex things. Television was always about, 'Look at me now! Look at me now! Now go away!' That's starting to change.
