The condition of being an actress can be unbearable.
I went to film school to make films just because you’re in control of the story.
Usually I’m able to imagine something and it comes out as I imagined, more or less.
Baby, you are gonna miss that plane.
I love the acting process. What I don’t like is what’s around it. The auditions and being rejected every other day. The look thing. That you have to lose weight, that you have to do Botox.
You’re never totally sure. I shouldn’t say that because you have to pretend you’re completely self-secure all the time. But, the truth is, I know what I’m doing. I think I know what I’m doing.
I have a few other films in my life where I’m not attached and for a long time it was too complicated. Now it’s starting to change because other actresses actually want to work with me, which is great.
I put my films together in Europe and it kick-starts the financing when I’m attached as an actress. It makes it easier to move forward.
The truth is I don’t see a lot of movies. I see the Oscar films. I see the films that are sent to me and a few films throughout the year.
I’ve directed five films and I’ve proven that people have made money with my films – many people have made money with my films.
I learned directing by editing because I saw all the mistakes I had made.
What’s funny is that with my comedies I don’t believe they’re my best screenplays necessarily. They’re just the ones that I wrote that I knew I could get financing, you know? I believe my other films could be better, but right now they’re not being made. But they will eventually.
Maybe I would get the chance to be financed for a small romantic comedy, but a war movie by a 28-year-old woman about Japanese soldiers? No one was going to go for that. It’s easy to just steal an idea because it’s very safe.
I’ve never had help from anyone, ever. I’ve never had this great director who saw themselves in me, because I’m a French woman in Hollywood. Who could identify with me as a successful director in Hollywood? Nobody. And the few people who could have been mentors, instead they just stole my ideas.
The people that are succeeding have often had a mentor of some kind. I think it makes a huge difference.
A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.
The camera can move, you can make the shots, blah blah blah, but as long as the actors are good, you have something.
And I realized that directing actors is really important because that’s what ends up on screen.
I want to be positive and say: everything I’ve written will get made eventually.
To make what you have in your head, I think that’s what directing is.