Callie Khouri Quotes

With 'Women in Hollywood,' I didn't direct it, but I produced it, and what we did is followed the money of Hollywood and how that intersects with issues relating to women and, frankly, sexism.

There seem to be more women producers than men.

It never crossed my mind to be a director, and I'll tell you why: because I'm a woman. It just didn't occur to me, but I knew I had to be in film.

After graduating, I was shooting as well as working as a key grip, and I often found myself the only female out of the whole crew, except for producers and the occasional AC.

A director has to be on the set when the crew is called and is the last one to leave at night. I'm not saying it's not possible, but that's partly why we're not seeing more women.

For the audience, actors carry out specific roles of men and women through the character that they play out on screen. The director on the other hand is not doing a gender-specific job. So, it is irrelevant if the person who makes a particular film is a man or a woman.

It's hard to get yourself into a position where someone will trust you to direct a film anyway, whatever sex you are. Certainly in England, the film set is a very male preserve. There's a lot of very rough looking men pushing equipment around that don't want the gaffer to be a girl.

I'd like to play passionate women, but no one will let me.

I literally couldn't get anyone to hire me. Having a woman do sports was seen as too risky.

Most female actresses will have a very difficult time being made unattractive.

To make a film and to sell it to the distributors you need a name.

Every single one of us who has been a 'Woman in Film' for more than five minutes is sick of the phrase 'Women in Film.'

When my friends and I would act out movies as kids, we'd play the guys' roles, since they had the most interesting things to do. Decades later, I can hardly believe my sons and daughter are seeing many of the same limited choices in current films.

Some boys accepted me, some didn't. And my family had comments made to them. Brazil is still a very macho society, and sports are mainly for boys, so people would say to them: 'What is this girl doing? Why is she always out there in the soccer games with the boys?'

Women over 35 have great stories, and the actresses are there, but you can't get the movies made.

There's still a massive inequality between the genders. If you look at the trajectory of a male actor's career, there's no hesitation or hiatus. But women after the age of 35 to 40 are rarely placed in the centre of the story.

When I started out, there were three things that made film people look at me with condescension, I was young, I was black, and I was female. I have won a certain respect, but I think the film community still sees directing as a male job.

We often hear of a male director directing a great indie and immediately being offered the next huge comic book movie. Rarely, if ever, does this happen to a woman.

Whether you're writing television or movies, at some point you're going to encounter a male executive or investor who's going to say, 'I don't like that woman. She's unlikable.' And often, it's literally for being a regular human woman as opposed to an attracting human woman.

People are always telling me that boys won't go to girls' movies and vice versa. It's not true.

If we have a situation where a man is particularly graceful in a sport that rewards grace - say, for example, figure skating - why is it that we don't say to the man, 'Well, you're too feminine to compete?'... I don't understand why we don't find it offensive also to say to a women who's very strong, 'You're too masculine to compete.'

To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision.

It is not easy to grow old in this business, when you are a woman above all, in the cinema.

I never wanted to be an actress who complained about the lack of roles for women.

If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.