In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids.
From its inception by Michael Bennett, ‘Dreamgirls’ has always been an epic story with an ensemble cast. I didn’t change that. The screen version remains, really, a group story.
My idea of a beach holiday is going to New York for two weeks, just going and hanging out.
Problems emerge and some people try to sweep them under the rug.
Our relationships, relationships between adults, how all those pieces fit together – that’s the most complicated thing we all face.
There were moments on the set when the depth of the cast of ‘Dreamgirls’ was almost overwhelming to me.
I wanted to make connections between Whale’s past and present.
Kinsey thought that Freud in his own way was as dangerous as the Catholic Church.
That day I think we really saw each other for the first time. I mean, saw beyond the bag of bones on the outside. You take away her pretty and my plain and what you get underneath is about the same: a couple of lost girls looking to be found.
A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie.
But the imposition of morality onto science, – where it does not belong – has become rampant in recent years.
I do think that’s so much a part of what being a director is – in working with actors – to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.
First of all, just knowing people who grew up in the movie business at that time, no one had Mexican maids.
I think it would be fun to write about movies again.
I think that finding a way into somebody’s life that’s sort of off from a side angle can tell you more about that person than a greatest hits approach.
Kinsey was six foot five, and he had this leader of men quality.
Because his basic idea that he got from the study of gall wasps is that everyone’s sexuality is unique.
When it comes to two of the big social earthquakes in the last fifty years – which are the gay movement and the women’s movement – I think there is a direct line from Kinsey to those.
No piece of writing is ever finished. It’s just due.
There’s nothing quite as good as folding up into a book and shutting the world outside.