Everything that I've done so far has had a bigger budget than the last, but I've never ever felt the benefit of the bigger budget because the ideas always exceed the budget.
The whole reason one wants to do lower budget films is because the lower the budget, the bigger the ideas, the bigger the themes, the more interesting the art.
I wrote them kind of consecutively, starting with 'Holy,' and then '1950,' 'Talia,' 'Upper West Side,' 'Make My Bed,' and I was kind of like, 'This is it.' It felt right. It felt complete. It felt like a sentence. I really enjoyed making it.
The truth is that I didn't start out making commercial movies. My films were not film festival movies with the possible exception slightly of 'Super,' but I was able to nurture my gifts through the works of artists making lower budget films that needed a place and an outlet.
Animation, for me, is a wonderful art form. I never understood why the studios wanted to stop making animation. Maybe they felt that the audiences around the world only wanted to watch computer animation. I didn't understand that, because I don't think ever in the history of cinema did the medium of a film make that film entertaining or not. What I've always felt is, what audiences like to watch are really good movies.
Films were really my church. As a young kid, it was movies and books; it was nothing remarkable, really, just that is where I felt soothed, that is where I felt most myself... safest.
I always loved that tragic look, the bigger-than-life women. They always have those big glasses and scarfs on, and doctors and nurses always around them. You felt sorry for them, but they had their lips together, no matter what was happening to them. They always looked like movie stars.
I did theater summer camps when I was a kid, and I enjoyed them, but they never felt quite right. But then there would always be a tiny improv workshop towards the end of camp, and I would always feel like I liked it so much better.
If I wanted to do TV full-time, 'Breaking Bad' is definitely the type of project I would want to do. But TV is not my favorite thing in the world. I definitely want to focus on film. It's what I grew up loving. It's always been about movies, movies, movies, movies, movies. I really want to make great films.
I've really enjoyed the independent film world. I've had a blast. But, the reality is that I really want to make bigger movies. If I could make movies that carry great characters and great performances and great pathos, and can have an explosion or two, that would be fine with me.
We love making movies. We got into the business to make movies. At the end of the day, whether you're doing a low budget film or a big budget film, you want it to do well and you want people to see it. That's the whole point. You want to put some kind of message in it.
I've always been "other." I've always felt odd; I have always felt foreign in the environment I've been in. When you are young, that is a really uncomfortable thing to feel. As an older woman I really embrace it.
I started off making backyard movies. I think it began in fifth grade - I'd get the friends together and we'd make little home movies. I always wanted to make movies but I didn't know how. It was always something really fun to do.
I didn't know anybody who was a filmmaker - there was no film industry where I grew up. I never knew what a director really did until I was in high school and I started reading up about it. I've always loved films, and I always felt like a storyteller.
I've always felt that I wanted to make a Marvel film... I just want to make sure I'm not making an episode.
The reach of big-budget films is bigger, but I have always loved doing films that I believe in.