It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life.
When I was a kid, I would fantasize about my own funeral.
I've always liked working with friends or, you know, people I have outside relationships with.
I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.
I graduated in '91, so the '90s for me were very much the first years out of school, so I can't really look at that decade as independent of my own experience of my 20s, really.
There's always some generational-guys-hanging-out movie that is made every few years, I think, and some of them are great.
Will Ferrell's made a lot of brilliant movies.
Friends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments.
I'm interested in music as an extension of character.
Manhattan is so tailored. It's driven by appealing to the very wealthy and tourists.
There was a telemarketing job one summer in high school that I was rejected for. I still walk by the building that I actually had the interview in. It's still in New York, and I always think about that job and why I didn't get it.
My dad was a great movie companion. He wouldn't diminish 'The Jerk.' If I liked it, he liked it. He could see it through my eyes.
You can be aware that something is idiosyncratic, and give it to a character, but keep doing it.
It's always really special to be at the New York Film Festival, and always a real privilege.
That's the nice thing about collaborating with someone: Your work becomes a conversation.
I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.
I find a lot of writing happens when you're not actually at the computer. So I carry a notebook.
There is an isolated experience to being a director. It's very communal because there's a crew, but it's only you. You're the one on the hook.
I think sometimes bad behaviour can be liberating for certain people. They need to behave badly to find themselves - to go off path to find their path. You see it with kids all the time: They're testing boundaries, and I think that's healthy.
I wouldn't say 'Frances Ha' is autobiographical, but it's definitely very personal.
