A biography for Marielle Hellerhasn’t been written yet.
“Our culture of the Bay Area is a place where you want to be different. You want to be seen. You want to be heard.”
“I do think there's a weird stigma where people probably think that female directors are a risk.”
“I don't really believe that all theater needs to be filmed - for some things, the special part of live theater is that it exists and then it's gone.”
“I don't look like the way we've painted directors in our movies and everything since forever. I don't look like an old white guy in a baseball cap. So, yes, there are always moments when people are surprised that I'm the director.”
“Becoming a writer, and then a director, was taking my creative life in my own hands, and wanting to have stories that I wanted to put out into the world - and I have fallen in love with directing.”
“Part of what I loved about exploring Lee Israel was she was a woman who was often overlooked and judged. And it was fun to find all the ways that I could sympathise and feel as though I was like her.”
“I think that instead of laying out ahead of time where my career is going to go, I try to make decisions that feel like they're the best steps for me in that moment.”
“Why do so many women drop out of the workforce at this age, in our late 30s, early 40s? Well, often it's because we're raising kids, so, let's be honest about that.”
“I just don't want to ever make decisions based on something that I feel like I shouldn't do, or if it's a logical career step. It has to be something that inspires me. Because if it's not something that inspires me, then I'm not going to do it well. And that doesn't help anybody.”
“What Mr Rogers was offering to children were lessons we all need in our world right now: patience, kindness, acceptance and true self-reflection.”
“The more women directors that get hired, the more practices will shift, top down.”
“Actually, Nicole Holofcener's movies have always felt really right to me. 'Lovely & Amazing' is a movie about women's bodies that I feel is so truthful and painful and real.”
“I'm a director... I don't wear any makeup, and wear jeans every day.”
“Molly Ringwald's characters always had a complex personal life, and I appreciated that.”
“Just make things, and find people you love working with. If you're working on something you truly love and are passionate about, you will do your best work.”
“I remember the first time somebody classified me as a feminist. I was in fourth grade. And I remember thinking, 'Oh, is that what I am?' At the time, I just cared about equality.”
“I'm getting more and more used to the fact that being a director and being a woman are two things that everyone wants to talk about, because it's so rare.”
“I remember my grandmother's husband dying. But I think I was older. I think I was 7 or 8 when he died. But I remember that being the first real person I knew who died, and I - and that my parents didn't let me go to the funeral. And I remember feeling like it was really unfair.”
“Nobody criticized the characters in 'The Godfather' for being bad examples of how to be men.”
“When you're directing, you look around and you think, everything I see is my responsibility. From the catering being on time to whether the clouds are moving the way I need them to move to whether this actor is giving the performance I want to whether the costumes are what they should be.”