Jodie Foster
I aspire to be able to appreciate and review a director based on their accomplishments and based on who they are and what they bring to the material, regardless of their gender.Collection: Appreciate
Definitely, there's a lot of trouble you come up against when you're acting and directing, about your performance. Sometimes it's hard to be objective about it. I will tend to get two takes and walk away. I don't belabor it, and it's important to me to have someone who says, "You know what? You should get another one, and maybe you should try it like that".Collection: Important
I think it's important that when people are struggling, that you not run away from them if you love them. Kristen, I mean, I look at the room tonight, you know, Kristen Stewart and Claire Danes, Jennifer Lawrence, all these young women that I worked with who basically were child actors like I was a child actor. And then I feel very protective of them, because even though I think I have managed to get through the process relatively sanely, I have my scars, and I hope to be in some ways a member of their family that's out there protecting them.Collection: Running
We think, "If I have more money, I am more valuable. If I make more money, I am more valuable." It's all sort of wound up with this problem that humans have with their failure.Collection: Thinking
It's a tough trick to be able to create an intelligent movie that has socio-political commentary, and also has the emotional and moving stuff, at the same time.Collection: Moving
Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it and I go: I think I'll just kick it.Collection: Thinking
I was a literature major in college and that was my thing, books.Collection: Book
I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don't believe in God, we celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids.Collection: Believe
There is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God.Collection: Believe
Being twenty-something is all about taking it in: eating it, drinking it, and spitting out the seeds later. It's about being fearless, and stupid, and dangerous, and unfocused, and abandoned. It's about being in it, not on top of itCollection: Inspirational
There are 400 billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If just one out of a million of those had planets, and just one in a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life, there would be literally millions of civilizations out there.Collection: Stars
Ninety-five percent of women's experiences are about being a victim. Or about being an underdog, or having to survive... women didn't go to Vietnam and blow things up. They are not Rambo.Collection: Blow
You hold all of our futures in your hands. So you better make it good.Collection: Hands
What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? The answer is always creativity; the answer is always art.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Creativity
People say as a woman actor your career is over at 40. But then they told me I would never work again after I was 16.Collection: Careers
Where I have problems is when I am in the midst of doing something that I am completely focused on, and then I am asked to buy shoes or something.Collection: Shoes
I'd like to work more as a director. It's distracting being an actor, because - there's a lot of reasons. You find out you're going to work about six months before you start shooting, and then there's prep and there's post afterward, and there's stuff to do, and then suddenly you've gone a year without directing. There's a part of me that has to not be tempted by that in order to commit more to the directing. Honestly, the big reason for me to act is to observe other directors and learn from them. That seems to be the biggest draw.Collection: Reason
I want to change the system from within the system. And that means focusing and specializing.Collection: Mean
There are lots of futurists that spend their whole life trying to figure out who we're going to be in 40, 50, 60, 100 years. That's the great thing about science fiction.Collection: Years
As time goes on, I will play characters who get older: I don't want to be some Botoxed weirdo.Collection: Character
I also feel like I've learned over the years what is not important, and that is also great: to know what is pointless to spend your energy on, to be more specific.Collection: Years
It's a skill that people are born with. Either you're a focuser or you're a multitasky person. I am a full-focus person.Collection: Skills
I'm not interested in being perfect when im older. Im interested in having a narrative. It's the narrative that's really the most beautiful thing about women.Collection: Beautiful
I'd prefer not to act in the film I'm directing. I think, though, as an actor, you do learn how to turn things on and off quickly and kind of compartmentalize. You learn to accommodate the camera and the other actors, to notice where the boom is and where you mark is, and be able to repeat something a few times.Collection: Thinking
When I go into the stores, I pet the saddles. Until security comes and takes me away.Collection: Pet
All of the thinking and planning that you do to get there, and then, in one minute, in one second, it just doesn't matter. It goes out the window. You either got it or you didn't. There is something kind of refreshing about that.Collection: Thinking
I think "destiny" is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern.Collection: Fate
Every movie changes you. The process of making a film changes you. You have to be obsessed, you have to get up at 3 in the morning and go "Wait, I have an idea!" You have to continually be drawn over and over again to deepening inside that story, and ruminating over questions: "Why would he say this to her? Why if he was standing there, would she go?" Every one of those answers has to come from some personal place, and in order to do that, you can't sit on the surface. It's such a big change that you can't really explain it to anyone else.Collection: Morning
I don't find acting and directing schizophrenic, in any way. I find it completely easy to move between the two.Collection: Moving
Just to set the record straight, a salary for a given on-screen performance does not include the right to invade anyone’s privacy, to destroy someone’s sense of self.Collection: Self
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: Stories
I do think it’s true that anytime somebody comes to you and says, “I’d like to be in your film,” it’s never good to dismiss them or make fun of them, because if they’re passionate and driven enough, they very well might find a way to be in your film.Collection: Fun
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.Collection: Stories
Everybody reads for me. I was never weird about that. I never minded coming in and reading. They should know if I’m the right person, and I should know if I want to do a movie.Collection: Reading