Young Harrison Ford, what a dreamboat.
I have very strong feelings about dance and how it's shot.
Acting was always the first love, but a lot of people want to be actors, and my goal was, 'Come hell or high water, I will be a part of this world, however I can.' So that just led me to throwing myself into every aspect of narrative storytelling I could.
I'm all for the banalities of life and humiliation and everyday tragedies, but I also think people have big moments, and they have bigness in them.
I think something about high school students being snobby about how much they have or don't have is particularly absurd because it's not theirs. It's their parents'. So to feel quite good about yourself because you've got the fancy house and car doesn't make any sense - you didn't earn any of that.
From Rebecca Miller, I took the idea that the director needs to arrive every day an hour ahead of everyone else and walk through the entire day.
I lived for two years with six girls in an apartment that was built for three people, and it had no heat. We would sleep in our coats and in sleeping bags. And it was great.
I sound like an old man when I talk about the Internet, but I am actually worried about what it's doing to our brains and our sense of connection.
When you write something you know, you're making a story that will work, whether or not there's bits taken. It's always funny to me when people say, 'Well, it's clearly autobiographical,' and I say, 'Well, how do you know my autobiography?' Certainly, there are things that are connected, but I just think it's a very interesting assumption.
I feel like a good pair of diamond studs goes a long way. They make everything look dressy, and you just seem more put together.
I had dreams, but I didn't have the sense that they would necessarily work out. They seemed very far-fetched.
We would go down to Riverside, California, which is very poor now, but that's where my grandfather grew up. He grew up during the Depression in Riverside.
I thought Mia Hansen-Love was a true auteur, and I always wanted to work with her. Mia's empathy for her characters and her ability to use the language of cinema to communicate real human depth is extraordinary. She's a humanist.
From Noah Baumbach, I learned to have a strict no cell phone policy on set. There is nothing that bums you out more than looking over and seeing somebody on their smartphone, and that goes for actors and everyone else.
There's a grace period where being a mess is charming and interesting, and then I think when you hit around 27, it stops being charming and interesting, and it starts being kind of pathological, and you have to find a new way of life. Otherwise, you're going to be in a place where the rest of your peers have been moving on, and you're stuck.
I wouldn't call myself 'into the DJ scene.' I have friends who are DJs, like James Murphy. I was really into the DJ scene at his wedding. But generally, I'm not at the clubs. I've never been to a rave.
When you're writing a screenplay, it's like you're dreaming the film for yourself again and again and again until it becomes almost like a memory before you make it.
I wrote the script to 'Lady Bird,' and it really came out of a desire to make a project about home - like, what the meaning of home is, and place. I knew Sacramento very well, obviously, growing up there, and I felt like the right way to tell a story of a place was through a person who's about to leave it.
When I was a kid, I used to do my homework in the living room, where there was a picture window. I was hoping that someone would walk by and see me looking very studious in my living room.
I have very intense feelings of joy or sadness. I used to not like that so much because I was worried it was girly, and I wanted to be more stoic. I think this happens a lot. When you're 16, there are qualities you wish you didn't have, and then when you're 30, you're like, 'Thank God I have that; otherwise, I'd be living less vividly.'
I'm scared of the Internet. That's not real, but it is. I'm worried about what it's doing to us.
I don't really decide what the core of the story is before I write. I write to figure out what the story is. And I think the characters end up talking to you and telling you what they want to be doing and what is important to them. So in some ways, your job is to listen as much as it is to write.
I think I've always wanted to direct, but I didn't go to film school. I was lucky enough to work in movies, and I think those became my film school in terms of acting and watching directors work and also writing and co-writing and producing.
I always feel like a vague failure in L.A. - it always makes me feel like I should somehow be different than I am. And I don't know why.
I live in New York, and I love New York as well, but I think Los Angeles is a place where if you have the right person with you, there are all these little worlds that you would never guess by just looking at the exterior of what the city is.
Woody Allen was the reason I wanted to move to New York City and one of the reasons I wanted to make films. I felt that I understood his films, and I love them so much. When you're starting out, certainly, you have this sense of wanting to talk back to people who have influenced you, and I always wanted to talk back to Woody Allen.
I didn't know the city at all, but I was so happy to be in New York I cried. I was so excited.
I was part of a hip-hop group called Fly Style. I was one of two white girls, and I was part of the younger company, which was called Touch of Style. And it was amazing. It gave me a different perception of dance and beauty because the other girls were mostly African-American and Latina.
In terms of sheer pleasure, Tom Stoppard was very big for me because he is so funny and so smart, and it felt delicious reading him.
I feel so part of the filmmaking community. It's amazing how much people support each other.
There's something that happens around 27 and 28, when people start coupling off more aggressively or changing their lives according to what their economic prospects are, and not keeping themselves on par with the group - you realise suddenly that they're not your family. And I think that's very painful.
I don't know any woman who has a simple relationship with their mother or with their daughter.
I love movies, so getting to be in the conversation and meet some of my heroes has been so fun. It's just the most fun thing ever.
There's a style in modern dance right now called Release Technique. It's based on a feeling of falling and catching yourself, and I thought it was such a good metaphor for the way life feels.
I think being attracted to mistakes is one of the things that film can capture in a way that theater can't. Film can capture a moment of spontaneous life that will never be captured again.
I'm always interested in how people use language to not say what they mean.
I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.
I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.
I stopped being interested in improvisation, and I continue to not be that interested in it. Comedians can do it on a different level because they have a goal, but if you're improvising something that's dramatic, there's not that much to be good at.
For Mike Mills, I learned that having dance parties and crying with your cast does not make you a weak director, it makes you a strong director.
I think as an actress, I prefer having a character on the page. It allows you to be more invested in actually creating a whole person. It's easier when you're not trying to come up with your next line on the spot.
Having health insurance made me feel like a real person. Up until then, it felt like I was getting away with something, and if three things went wrong, it would all fall apart.
The more particular you make something, the more universal it becomes.
Working is not instantly rewarding. It's a long process, and it's much easier to just feed whatever dopamine cycles exist in your brain in instant gratification ways. I get it; I do it.
I loved 'Moonlight.' I thought it was really beautiful. Really great.
I feel like, when I play characters, I create a space in myself that feels like the character and that doesn't go away. Somehow, you carry that with you. You let it go, but a little piece of it remains.
I just don't feel like I've seen very many movies about 17-year-old girls where the question is not, 'Will she find the right guy' or 'Will he find her?' The question should be, 'Is she going to occupy her personhood?' Because I think we're very unused to seeing female characters, particularly young female characters, as people.
There's something very satisfying about old cameras because they're ingenious. I mean when you take them apart and actually see, 'Oh, this is how we make photographs,' it's an ingenious thing, but it feels like it's in a way a layman can appreciate, whereas a digital camera, I don't even begin to know what goes into making a digital camera.
