Gender Roles in Film Quotes

You don't get roles like leading character in 'Christine' very often because people don't really like women on film to be unlikable. I think Christine is lovable, but I don't think she's likable. I think there's a fundamental difference. For me, those are the richest ones. Men have had a career of doing those kind of things.

I've played lots of strong women in film, in big Hollywood films, and I've sometimes had a hard time in coming to a consensus of what makes a woman strong. What is it that positions her as a force to be reckoned with? And I think it's because there's an expectation from the get-go that she isn't. If you're not starting from a deficit as a point of view, but you're starting from an assumption that says, "Well, this is what women really are," then it's a really freeing experience as an actor and as a woman.

In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men - maybe that's a common point with Shirin - the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.

I think there are so many unmaiden roles for women. I've been lucky enough to play girls with lots of different attitudes about sex. There's a couple other movies at Sundance that also show sex in a different way. That's exciting. I actually don't think women are being pigeonholed right now, and I like that. It's showing that men and women - when it comes down to it, we're animals, aren't we? I know how my next-door neighbors feel about it, and I hope they're enjoying it.

Especially in gangster films, with the gangster's moll - she would always be more or less of an object. And I'm not convinced of this theory. Because I think even gangsters' women have brains. They think and even, as we say, have balls.

I was able to say to everyone, 'Would you be willing to take a role that you've cherished and worked on for a long time and change it to female?' And there was not any hesitation, which was a real win. That hopefully shows a shift in the climate for women in film, although we still have some climbing to do.

In male-driven [films], the protagonist is not the person who's necessarily in harms way. There's a sense that they're going to figure out how to persevere and take on the obstacles and foes and you don't necessarily know if that's going to happen with the subjects of love stories.

I'm not interested in making movies only with female protagonists. I think it's ridiculous to think that a female director can't direct men. That makes no sense to me.

Women think in Sirk's films. Something which has never struck me with other directors. None of them. Usually women are always reacting, doing what women are supposed to do, but in Sirk they think. It's something that has to be seen.

'Pyaar Ka Punchnama' was mainly a boys' film; we girls were just a catalyst. We would set up a situation for them to react to, and the joke would come on us. The applause was for the boys. But, the film paved the way for me in the industry.