A Quote by Timothy Miller
As a first time director it's interesting, but not all that different from what I did before. A lot of parts of this job seem to be very similar to running a big company.
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Ferguson, as a manager, and Ken, as a director, are very similar. One's a great manager, the other a great director, but both have a lot of humanity and a lot of humility. They always give you the energy... with Ferguson when we played a game it was like it was his first game - he's so passionate and gives you ambition every time. And Ken works the same way - they're very similar.
I've been exploring a lot of different avenues with a number of very different and very, very exciting filmmakers and writers. That's been the trip. I like to find something very, very different from the last thing I did, which might be similar to something I've done before, but as long as it's different from the last thing I did, it keeps me entertained.
The first time I did a big American film, I was surprised by all the different financiers who came to the set and told the director what to do.
We made 'Mickey and the Bear' with barely any money with a first-time director, a first-time director of photography, and a crew who had just graduated from NYU film school. We were all very much in this together for the first time. There's no famous actor or big explosions. It's not a Marvel movie. I thought nobody was going to see this film.
Big Fish was the first movie that we worked on together, and I had already written it. We had another director, but that director didn't do it. So, it was just a Hail Mary to Tim, and Tim said that he wanted to do it and I was like, "That's fantastic!" But, there wasn't a lot of collaboration because he knew what he wanted to do and just did it. There were very minor changes for Big Fish.
So many people in L.A. have such different styles. People either dress very similar or very different. It's interesting to find people who think outside the box, and it's interesting, when you mix different mind-sets, what you can come up with.
It's interesting in seeing when I'm talking to men in particular and telling them I'm an actress versus a director and the different turn the conversation will take when I say I'm a director. The level of respect is very interesting.
We had some really powerful technology - Atari always was a technology-driven company, and we were very keen on keeping the technological edge on everything. There's a whole bunch of things that we innovated. We made the first computer that did stamps or sprites, we did screen-mapping for the very first time, and a lot of stuff like that.
I never made kimchi before. I talk about my first time making it in the book, and I'm not a big baker, but I imagine it's like a similar kind of feeling for a lot of people who are bakers where it's just something that takes time. There's so much space to be reflective and meditative.
Atari always was a technology-driven company, and we were very keen on keeping the technological edge on everything. There's a whole bunch of things that we innovated. We made the first computer that did stamps or sprites, we did screen-mapping for the very first time, and a lot of stuff like that. We had some of the most sophisticated sound-creating systems, and were instrumental in MIDI.
One thing about hanging out with a bunch of clean drug addicts, everyone is just super similar to you. So that has been awesome. I've made a lot of friends who are coming from an extremely similar place, even if they seem externally very different. I know I am an outsider in a number of ways, but I don't feel weird.
The mall tour was right off of my second record, before it came out. It was very different. I did an acoustic performance every day in a different mall! One interesting thing I remember is playing 'My Happy Ending' a lot, and that song was so new that I remember getting emotional.
Very rarely have I worked with a director where we've been at odds. And by the time you've actually talked to somebody and you have the job, there's something that they see in you that they want you to bring to the character. And the best director says very little to you, acting-wise. They usually just say, "Okay, here's the shot." It's their job to do all that stuff, and your job's to do the acting. So it's very rare that somebody will say, "Oh, no. I conceived this very differently".
In a startup car company, everything you do has to be done in a different way than a traditional car company. And the main reason is that all of these big car companies are operating like giant well-oiled machines - you could put a very seasoned executive in, and all he has to do is make sure the machine keeps running.
The mall tour was right off of my second record, before it came out. It was very different. I did an acoustic performance every day in a different mall! One interesting thing I remember is playing "My Happy Ending" a lot, and that song was so new that I remember getting emotional when I would play it.
I think you have to have different tools for each job - you know producer is very different from a director and very different from an actor.
