You know, when you make something in live-action, you make it real. And when you are inspired by and determined to honor the original - the most original version of the 'Mulan' story - then you have to acknowledge that this is a story about a young woman who disguises herself as a man and goes to war.
The Maori culture is different than our culture where we're most likely to introduce ourselves by email or fax and we conduct a lot of business in an impersonal way, whereas for Maori, the only way to do it is to make the pilgrimage and sit down face-to-face and have some tea.
Whale Rider' was a very authentic and specific movie about the indigenous culture from where I come. Amazingly, by the fact it was so authentic and so specific, it became really powerfully universal.
The amazing thing about cross-country is that they don't run indoors - I could put them in extraordinary environments. And it's kind of uniquely cinematic in that way, to be able to commit to the screen some things that people don't get to see too often.
Personally, I have nothing to prove. But I'm tremendously curious about human nature. Female life is so incredibly underexplored in cinema, so these stories feel very exotic.
Fundamentally, the way I work is exactly the same whether I'm making 'Whale Rider' or 'Mulan'. And those two stories are somewhat similar. They have interesting parallels, and it felt like I'd really come full circle, back to a story of leadership.
I'm very conscious of what I consider to be the first audience of any movie that I make. It's those people whose reactions I'm most attentive to. They're the ones who will tell me whether I've done my job or not.
As far as people getting into the industry and creative roles as writers and directors, I would say that technology is on your side, and you can tell their stories very easily.
I think about things like the ability to communicate a vision, strength to create an environment where the actors fell very safe and where they can maybe they can work without e protecting themselves they can really stretch. These qualities are neither male nor female.
There's so many movies, they're just like fast food you consume them and you can't even remember what you just ate. I don't want to make those kinds of movies. I want to make the slow food of movies.
A film like 'Whale Rider' is equally truthful, perhaps more so, to the Maori experience; Maori people respond to 'Whale Rider' because it's a world that they understand.
Sense of place is really big for me - as a filmmaker and as an audience member, it's huge.
Martial arts are inherently both incredibly impressive and incredibly beautiful. And that's my female nature, maybe, and my instinct, to make things beautiful.
I take particular care in authenticity and specificity when working in cultures not my own. Every aspect of the filmmaking here was meticulously researched, and not just by me but across every department.
When I made 'Whale Rider' - of course, I'm not Maori and have no business, as a white girl, telling people how to be in this movie - I started by learning the language, as best I could.