Jodie Foster
I don't know if I see myself as really an action hero, but I like doing physical movies and I like doing movies where the writing is very lean.Collection: Movies
I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.Collection: Movies
As an actor, I'm attracted to drama; as a director, it's humor - because it's the story of my life, and I can't be that serious about it. Being alone is a big theme in all my movies, both as a director and as an actress.Collection: Alone
It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.Collection: War
Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock do romantic comedies. I do dark dramas. I do these movies well.Collection: Movies
I love European movies and I kind of grew up on European films.Collection: Movies
It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.Collection: Car
I think every movie changes me and is life changing, especially movies you direct.Collection: Movies
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.Collection: Society
I feel at various times in my life that I've been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? And the answer is always creativity. The answer is always art.Collection: Death
My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: Mom
I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.Collection: Art
The world is littered with movies about people that are depressed that either did not come out or are not successful.Collection: Movies
All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life.Collection: Movies
I'd always need a creative outlet. But sometimes, I do fantasize what my life would be like if I weren't famous.Collection: Famous
My mom was always late. It drove me crazy as a child. So I'm always on time - or early.Collection: Mom
I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.Collection: Movies
Acting, for me, is exhausting. I'm always more energized by directing. It's more intense to direct. I can pop in and express myself, then pop out again. It's a huge passion for me.
Any actor working a long time should know how a shot is set up, where to place themselves, how to handle the lines. I'm a member of the crew, like the best boy, the electrician. What I'm good at is making eyes at the camera.
I read more than I do anything else, probably. I read about three books a week.
I love the way L A. leaves you alone. I can go home, read all day, and nobody bugs me.
Otherness is a big thing for me. I'm always drawn to characters that live lives that I couldn't lead.
I don't like it when reviews aren't about the movie. When they're about how much money somebody made, or who they're sleeping with, or if they got the job via some connection, or about how Fox is putting X amount of dollars into it.
I don't direct so that I can have an identity and so I can go on to CGI movies. I had a big identity as an actor, and that's not what I'm looking for from directing. Directing is a whole different goal.
I don't find acting and directing schizophrenic in any way. I find it completely easy to move between the two.
It's hard to get personal films off the ground, and it's hard developing them.
I like dramas. I've always liked dramas. And I'm a pretty light person. I don't consider myself a very dramatic person. But I do like doing that onscreen.
I like to nap. I do like to sleep. Sometimes I sleep in between takes.
I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.
I do almost all my movies in French. I dub them.
I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it. It allows you to really appreciate the hand of the filmmaker.
With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.
I saw leaving college as an opportunity to do something different with my life. I always thought that becoming an academic was going to be my path.
I make dark dramas, movies about people living in desperate fear who then overcome that fear and find a heroic side to themselves.
I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn't writing my own things or directing my own movies.
If I make two movies my entire life, and they're two movies that - whether they make a lot of money or two people go to see them - they speak of me, then I consider them incredibly successful. I don't need to be Steven Spielberg.
I was one of those avid moviegoers as a kid, and we didn't have video, so we went to see everything five times. I went to see every foreign film playing in my town. As times went on, I watched a lot less films. I have a different film school now. My film school now is my life experience.
As an actor, I'm always playing solitary characters. But as a director, I'm always making ensemble movies, which focus on lots of people's lives and how they intertwine.
I'm really not a clothes person. To me, that's just work. It's the thing I hate to do the most. I don't want to be judged in that way.
In a weird way, that's the beauty of being an actor. You get to live out things that you're afraid of, and you get to say, 'Well, maybe I can get to the end of it and survive it intact and I can be the hero of my own story.' It's kind of a way of exorcising fear.
I don't like the outside world to intrude when I'm making a film. I like to either see my family or work, but I don't like to go out.
Most actors don't really have a director's sensibility. They have an actor's sensibility.
Every movie that I've had to really knock down the door for has been an enormous success for me. Not just like a financial success but a real personal success.
I like to be in a different place when I make a movie so that I can't really focus on anything else, and that is your world.
There are conscious reasons and unconscious reasons why I pick something. You know, I have to be moved by the story and usually that means it has to touch me in some kind of personal place.
I never know what's going to move me. I'm always surprised. And it's always a mystery to the people who work with me.
I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.
Acting just happens to be my skill, but I think I would probably be just as happy being a technician or entering into the film business in some other way.
I will always love psychology, and the basis of psychology is family.