Hirokazu Kore-eda Quotes

My parents always knew that I loved music. They just didn't think I'd try to make it a career. They thought I'd be a painter or an art teacher or something like that.

When I went home at 20 to tell my parents, 'I don't want to be an engineer, I want to try and write books,' I was braced for, 'That's not gonna happen.' But I didn't get that response, and maybe it was because of my dad's experience of having an artistic dream and having to put it aside.

I went to school for economics, and especially in Asian culture it's not really a viable job for my family to be an artist.

I think my parents wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be. But I do remember them - when I first moved out to L.A. - sending me applications to grad school for teaching.

I never hoped that both my children would become actors. I expected them to do something else.

I thought that making movies was drab. I'd lived through that. And I didn't want to use my parents, ever... They didn't want to push me into this business.

My parents felt that acting was far too insecure. Don't ask me what made them think that painting would be more secure.

My parents would have loved it if my brother or I had become a doctor or lawyer.

I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way.

I decided in my late teens that I wanted to be an actor, and my dad and I agreed that films were better. I work alongside my dad, you see. I've thought that films were better since I was a kid.

My mother was keen that I complete my graduation and never ever wanted me to be in the movies, as my father had made five films that lost money. One of the films he made was 'Agneepath,' which was hugely hyped but underwhelming at the box office, and I remember that my dad had to sell my grandmother's flat to pay off the loan.

My dad was Chinese-American and very conservative when it came to his family's futures. He said if I wanted to have a secure job, I should go into science. So I did what Dad said and went to medical school, but the writing bug never left me.

My mom was always keen I stayed in school and got good grades, and she was always keen for me to do medicine. I used to go to drama classes when I was younger, and she would always take me. But when I got to an age when I decided it was what I wanted to do, when she accepted it, she had actually been the most supportive person ever.

My dad was a builder, so I didn't have any connection to the arts at all. I never really considered film as a career, but I knew I didn't want to be a builder.

I thought I had everything going for me. I wasn't listening to nobody. And my dad was like, 'Uh-uh, you can't make money from music. You have to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer. Something that's going to do something for this world. Music doesn't do anything.' And I had to fight that, his passion, and fight the society that I was from.

My father, Ralph Fernandes, was a model before he became an interior designer. He was very supportive of my decision to become a model and then an actress.

I told my mom for years that I wanted to be a manicurist, and she'd always be like, 'But what if you went to college and you got a degree?' She'd try to explain how I could actually do a thing that would make me a ton of money, or that I didn't have to just pick the business that was closest to our house.

My mom is very practical, and she originally wanted me to have something to fall back on. She was a little fearful of my becoming an actor because she didn't see it as a way to make a living. My dad, who was born and raised in Cuba, was really cool with it.

It was my dad who encouraged me to come into films.

My family didn't want me to be a musician, and therefore, they never helped out in my efforts.

My mother was willing to support art as a summer program for me. She never supported it as a career decision until I won the National Gallery Portrait Competition.

I remember studying so hard for so long and saying to my parents, 'I will be a teacher.' And they were looking at me like, 'Girl... you just want to be on stage. Stop pretending.' So when I chose to do music, they were relieved. My parents were more intelligent and lucid than I was.

Growing up I didn't want to be an actor. I sort of didn't want to go into the family business; the main reason being there was something I wanted to do far more, which was be an artist.

Television allows you to actually make a living, feed your children, send them to college and important significant things. To have the ability, the luxury, to make the choices of doing little movies where people cannot pay you.

I wanted to direct more than I wanted to act. And I found I couldn't do everything.