I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.
You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.
If a spectator with a philosophical mind, somebody accustomed to reading books, gets the same kind of information in a movie, he might not fully understand it.
As an actress, I never went to film school, and I think if I had gone to film school, I would have started with a great advantage. If you have a strong intent to do anything in life, you can do it, but it always helps to have formal training.
I went to USC film school, briefly, which is a very traditional film school.
When I went to university, I finally got exposed to European films, and they had a strong impact on me. I felt those films had a lot of things to say that weren't getting expressed in the films I was used to seeing.
The '80s were a time of technical wonder in filmmaking; unfortunately, some colleges didn't integrate their film and theater departments - so you had actors who were afraid of the camera, and directors who couldn't talk to the actors.
Film and television as a medium has only very recently begun to be taught at the great drama schools in the UK. When I was at drama school in the UK, I was there for two and a half years, and we did one week of television and film. It's right before you leave. It's like, "We've taught you Anton Chekhov and William Shakespeare, you are likely to be in a washing-up soap-liquid commercial."
I went to film school at UT Austin.
My father always told me that story was first and foremost. We would watch not just his films but a lot of classic American films. My father was a great David Lean fan, and David Lean's one of my favorite directors. We would discuss films endlessly.
I was one of those avid moviegoers as a kid, and we didn't have video, so we went to see everything five times. I went to see every foreign film playing in my town. As times went on, I watched a lot less films. I have a different film school now. My film school now is my life experience.
I went to NYU graduate film school and met Pam [Romanowsky], and after doing a few things with her I thought she had the right sensibility and that she could figure it [The Adderall Diaries] out.
I went to film school and wanted to learn everything there was about making movies.
The best education in film is to make one
I did learn a lot from 'Things We Lost in the Fire,' but I've learned different things from different films.
I went to Columbia film school; that's where I met Matthew Weisman. We then became writing partners, graduated, and moved out to Los Angeles. I didn't know a soul.
I watched John Wayne movies, matinees - things like that. It was only in college that I saw European films. That became more of what I was interested in.
I'd hardly seen any movies when I was 19 and left drama school.
I went to NYU undergrad, then went to AFI for grad school.
I teach at USC. I have a big class of 360 kids, only about a fifth of whom are film majors. I don't just show the Hollywood blockbusters. I show independent films, foreign films, documentaries.
Looking back now, if I went to film school, it probably would have helped knowing what the best of the best of foreign films were, but that wasn't the case. In some ways, I think that led to my originality, because I hadn't seen anybody else.
Film school was a privilege I could not afford.
I do tend to take time off. A year and a half ago I went to film school, and before that I had taken years off at a time to be involved politically or this or that.
After studying in Sheffield, I went down to London to do my post-graduate degree at the National Film and Television School, embarking on the movie that would eventually become 'A Grand Day Out.'
I've been lucky to be educated by watching the old and the great movies, working with good filmmakers, and being educated on sets.
