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.
I know that a man's version of a tough woman is very different from a woman's version.
When people are crass or loudmouthed, it's not because they don't give a damn. It's from fear and insecurity.
That was devastating to me: how a bright, energetic kid could turn doomed and desperate.
It's not palm trees and neon signs in Florida; it's strip malls, highways, hot sun beating down on you.
You do what you believe in.
We're all always wondering about our own limits, what we're capable of.
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.
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.
My father was a fighter pilot, so I moved around the world when I was young. Then I ended up in Kansas.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
To be a director, you need to be reliable, on time, confident, calm, all of those things you see demonstrated in the military.
I want to make great films in my lifetime, and I really want to make a great film about Wonder Woman.
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.
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.
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?
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.
