JODIE FOSTER

If I make two movies my entire life, and they're two movies that - whether they make a lot of money or two people go to see them - they speak of me, then I consider them incredibly successful. I don't need to be Steven Spielberg.

People are always surprised when I say that I'm an atheist.

I love the way L A. leaves you alone. I can go home, read all day, and nobody bugs me.

The movies I made when I was 14 or 15, I have a hard time looking at those. Those were the awkward years. I don't know if anybody can look at something they did when they were 14 and not wince.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

I'm interested in directing movies about situations that I've lived, so they are almost a personal essay about what I've come to believe in.

Everybody reads for me. I was never weird about that. I never minded coming in and reading. They should know if I'm the right person, and I should know if I want to do a movie.

Adolescence is a tough one to be a child actor.

So, yes, there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.

I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it.

Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.

I'd like to be Dakota Fanning when I get young.

As an actor, I'm always playing solitary characters. But as a director, I'm always making ensemble movies, which focus on lots of people's lives and how they intertwine.

I don't have a burning desire to act, strangely enough. I don't know that if I hadn't been an actor as a young person, I don't know that I ever would have chosen this because it's not really my personality.

I was never the ingenue or the pretty girlfriend of Tom Cruise in a movie. I didn't have that career, so I don't have to compete on that level.

Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.

Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.

But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.

It's very hard for me to get a new car. It's really hard for me to get a new house. It's really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability.

Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock do romantic comedies. I do dark dramas. I do these movies well.

Otherness is a big thing for me. I'm always drawn to characters that live lives that I couldn't lead.

I think every movie changes me and is life changing, especially movies you direct.

The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.

My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.