I could take a photo, but I'd rather paint a picture.
I feel much more comfortable as a writer than an actor. I feel like I am a much better writer than I am an actor.
Early on, even in college, I figured out that it was just more interesting to me to create content than to write about other people. So that makes it more marketable.
I would rather be part of something that is entertaining than realistic.
I'd rather make music than tour.
Art is the expression of an enormous preference.
My favorite Tyler Perry movie? Ugh, how can you decide? For me, it's basically like: Kurosawa, Tyler Perry, Martin Scorsese, in that order.
Some directors want to make superhero films. That's what gets them off, and they love it, and they love sci-fi. I prefer putting my hands into non-fiction.
I do not like to be a prophet. I like better to paint than to predict what the next painters will do. Though I have a feeling that consideration of order is very much in the air.
The thing I know how to do most is write a play. I came up loving plays and learning about plays and writing plays. I actually feel like an outsider when I'm writing movies and television.
Unless it's a song and something fancy, I would rather shoot on location.
I didn't have any expectations with 'Traveller' - I don't think anybody did. That's how I prefer the process to be.
If I wanted to be in movies, I'd have gone into scriptwriting: the fact that I write novels should be a big hint about what I prefer to do!
The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies, and I'm a better moviemaker than I would be writer.
I like acting better than anything else, but, you know, directing's good.
I would never do a printed memoir. I've been asked to publish a memoir from years by different publishers and literary agents. I think it wouldn't be great for me because all I'd really want to talk about it music and I'd rather just play it.
I feel I'm just meant to do stop-motion. Live-action is much more glamorous to some, but it's basically a whole army of people focused on one thing.
I am not a painter. I am a poet. / Why? I think I would rather be / a painter, but I am not.
I think there are two ways to depict a family. One is what it's really like, and one is what the audience would like it to be. Between you and me, I think the second one is what I would prefer.
As an artist, I will always give art more importance and preference than pure entertainment.
Interviewer: Have you ever considered writing nonfiction? Mary Doria Russell: Oh, honey, I did! Let's see...There was "A Reconsideration of the Evidence for Cannibalism at the Krapina Neandertal Site." That was a big hit. And who could ever forget "Cutmarks on the Engis II Calvarium"? Then there was "Browridge Development as a Function of Bending Stress in the Supraorbital Region." I got tons of reprint requests for that one. Trust me fiction is better.
If I had to write long-form stuff with descriptions of rooms, it would be so boring for me. I like writing dialogue and jokes and situational stuff.
Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.
Given a choice, I prefer directing a play to a film.
As artists, we're always going to like the songs we just now made over the songs we made a year ago.
