Quote

People are always talking about the old days. They say that the old movies were better, that the old actors were so great. But I don't think so. All I can say about the old days is that they have passed.

What I felt at that time - we're talking about '61 - was that I couldn't remember seeing a film that reflected the age we were living in.

I think the '70s are always inspiring to me. I was born then, so I have a lot of memories about how my parents were and what kinds of movies I was watching.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn't understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

It sounds so negative of me to say, but I don't feel like there were many coming-of-age films when I was growing up. I think that when I was a teenager, I felt really misrepresented in the teenage roles that I was watching onscreen. Especially in women.

I have a very vivid memory of the way my parents spoke, and the 50's that I grew up in are closer to the 20's, I think, than today in many, many ways.

I've always had a thing for old movies, old Hollywood. I've always just loved watching Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. In all of those old movies from the '40s and '50s, women put themselves together so well, with a little bit of drama and elegance. That was fascinating to me growing up.

For the most part, I've stayed as far away as possible from high school movies. I just don't find them to be that relatable to everybody? They become like this: 'Look at that period of time. Isn't that interesting?'

I've been accused of being old before my time more than once. It's true that I've always felt an affinity for, and been comfortable around, older people. I attribute this to a childhood spent around my grandparents - and even a great-grandparent or two. I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.

I think there's a fundamental distinction between character-driven movies that are just really lovely slice-of-life movies and character-driven movies that you remember 20 or 30 years later; the common denominator with the ones you remember is that they all have some really complicated emotional problem at their core.