Marielle Heller

“I was in theater school playing Lady Macbeth and doing these great dramatic parts, and then I got out into the real world and was auditioning for commercials, and just not getting to do anything that felt remotely meaningful.”

“As women we are very accustomed to putting ourselves in the shoes of male leads.”

“I know I dressed way too provocatively when I look back. I was in that weird phase of feeling suddenly like my body was a woman's body and not a kid's body.”

“Every actor is different, but it's a very fine line when it comes to how much information they have versus how much they need to let their imagination fill in the blanks.”

“My normal way of filming something is, like, one camera, very well planned out, knowing exactly how we're going to get each shot.”

“I did not grow up in the 70s but in the 80s in the Bay Area, the child of hippies in Berkeley, so I felt connected to the place and the legendary things that had come before me historically that I'd missed.”

“My five-year-old, before the quarantine, joined a chess class in our neighborhood in Brooklyn, and my husband was learning to play so that they could play against each other.”

“I spent most of my 20s working as an actor. I started writing and directing because I was frustrated with the types of roles that were available to young women.”

“I think there used to be more respect toward young people in movies. John Hughes really respects his characters and they're given their emotional weight. He does so even with kids, but especially with teenagers.”

“It feels like there are two very different parts to making movies. There's the making of it and then there's the putting out of it - and I like the making of the movies a lot more than putting it out into the world.”

“With all of the bad things that are happening in the world right now, I think we need a message of togetherness and true unity. I believe that starts with personal reflection and then we can find kindness toward each other.”

“Writing, directing - it's just torture every time and it doesn't seem to get any easier. And yet I love them and I'm not going to stop doing them.”

“For the same reason I want to make movies about women, I also want to make movies that help men be better men and that can be an antidote to toxic masculinity.”

“I had a great family. Nobody ever told me that I should stop raising my hand in class or that I should become - as a girl, that I should somehow become less confident.”

“Somehow I had a lot of the skills that I didn't know were required for directing. I didn't realize that my life had been leading in that direction.”

“I love movies where the explosions and fireworks are happening inside someone's heart and mind instead of outside.”

“I think acting helps me as a director no matter what. There is something about being reminded about the vulnerability it takes to be an actor and what I'm really asking of actors every day when I'm on set as a director that I think it's a really good reminder.”

“I'm not the type of person who can be a director for hire, I have to find my own way into it.”

“Scott Frank and I are director friends. We met through the Sundance Labs and he's advised me on my first projects - I've visited him on set, we've shared first cuts with each other, and we're more like director pals than anything else.”

“One of the boring tricks about capturing Broadway onscreen, actually, is just about all the different unions.”