Unfortunately, if you're going to say anything that's in your head, you're going to get some kickback.
To tell you the truth, in the old Jewish shtetls, if your husband died, sometimes they'd have you marry the brother, and my grandparents were actually stepbrother and stepsister.
I attended Art & Design High School, and at one point, you had to write about what you wanted to be when you grew up. I wrote that I wanted to be a writer for 'Mad' magazine.
I didn't go to Hebrew school.
The building in the Bronx where I grew up was filled with mostly Holocaust survivors. My two best friends' parents both survived the camps. Everyone in my grandparents' building had tattoos. I'd go shopping with my grandparents, and the butcher, the baker, everybody in the whole neighborhood had tattoos.
I wasn't bat mitzvahed.
The Bronx always seemed very dreary to me.
For me, New York is home because that's where I'm from.
I wasted most of my 20s being so frustrated I forgot to have fun. I was so concentrated on one thing - 'Must make movie.'
When I did 'Fast Times,' I felt very close emotionally to the characters. I liked those characters because they all had to work, so they were dealing with adult problems even though they were very immature, and I could relate to that.
I wanted to do something about a really optimistic character: a character who was so optimistic, no one could burst her bubble.
I wanted to do something in the style of a comedy of manners.
I don't think people know 'Nosfuratu.'
I really live in my own kind of universe.
I'm real excited by a phone where I can look at my kid and talk to her face.
Everybody who worked in film misses holding pieces of film, holding it up to the light, and seeing exactly where something was image-wise.
I still find it interesting that there could be a point between a young guy and a girl when they decide to hold hands as they walk down the block. At some point, they decide to make the leap from pushing and insulting each other to doing something tender and possessive and showing the world that.
I'm just not happy with Hollywood.
Sometimes people say, 'Oh you did one of my favorite movies,' and I will ask them what the other one is, and it's always something that I totally hate.
For my money, the movies of the '70s were just amazing.
