By the first week of shooting, you know exactly where your film is heading based on the psychology of your director.
I am the luckiest filmmaker I know.
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 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 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 love European movies and I kind of grew up on European films.
I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it.
I spent a lot of time not in school, so I didn't have deep relationships with kids my own age.
I think Anna and the King is a look at Asia from the Asian perspective, reflecting the Asian experience, which is very rare.
I'm kind of a chatterbox and I talk really fast.
I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.
My kids are young and my life with them is really stimulating and really full and significant.
Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.
So, yes, there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.
The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.
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.
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.
I'd like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.
Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.
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.
