Films Quotes

Compared to the United States and certainly a lot of other countries around the world... per year, Australians do see more films.

I did a couple of films, I was very lucky at the beginning of my career... and then, I never had another job here for ten years probably and I moved to Europe.

But I've worked where they've had animals before, and animal wranglers, the people who raise animals and train animals for films and television, they're all very, very professional.

I remember those days with Bergman with great nostalgia. We were aware that the films were going to be quite important, and the work felt meaningful.

Sometimes it's more difficult to do very simple, low-key films.

I've done some music for films and I really enjoy doing it.

Through my films I'm eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don't know if I'm ever going to get there, but I'm slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I'm 85, I'll look back and say, 'All right, that about sums it up.'

If I make two films in a year, they'll be different. This is my style - I can't have just one way.

I always feel I could be like Toni Collette, going between big studio things and indie films. That would be feasible.

I was studying to be an architect, I wasn't plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously.

My friend James Cameron and I made three films together - True Lies, The Terminator and Terminator 2. Of course, that was during his early, low-budget, art-house period.

It was always something I knew I was capable of and from an early age my mother was involved in the film industry. She used to work at a production company. So I was exposed to a renaissance period of films in New Zealand back in the early 80's.

If you look at classic Hollywood films, they tend to shoot close-ups on quite long lenses and the background it out of focus. You know, it's just a mush.

But you know, as you say, the original versions of my films are getting out there, slowly.

I don't like alien films where you don't get to see the aliens.

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

Sometimes in films it's nice to have violins on either side, rather than on one side, so you've got more of a stereo picture with the violins. Sometimes it's good to have the basses in the middle.

In studio films, everything has to be boxed in, everybody needs to know beforehand - this is comedy, this is sci-fi, this is drama - and what's the point of independent film if you don't get to experiment?

I actually enjoy wearing the corsets required in some period films.

And sometimes I do films so my daughter can see me work.

With the Ford Foundation grant all of a sudden instead of being an artist that had made a couple of short films, I became a filmmaker who dabbled in the arts.

It's sad - it's sad for us old enough to remember when directors ruled, and films were substantially better than they are today. But it's hard to argue with those kinds of grosses.

Always changing genres, making very different films is a good idea. It's a way of making yourself feel vulnerable again, getting back to that innocence. As is working within a circumspect budget.

I had to work out where I was going, what type of films I wanted to make. For that reason, I decided to choose independent productions, less important roles, and I tried theater, too.

Across the board, Australian films need to have a lot more money spent on selling them.

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

I am a hybrid. I do independent films and also do Hollywood films - I love them both.

We have to look forward and keep filming new films and not get stuck in the past.

I've made a lot of stupid action films. But when we made The Matrix, we saw that people wanted more than that.

I'd like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don't have misconceptions - they understand. I believe that.