Jodie Foster

I am the luckiest filmmaker I know.

I want to be inspiring to myself, to my kids, my family, and my friends.

I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it.

The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.

Adolescence is a tough one to be a child actor.

I'm a technician. I don't go for the get-into-the-role stuff. I read the lines and play the scenes.

All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life.

I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that's kind of a natural progression. But I'm definitely drawn to it. It's probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.

Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.

If I make two movies my entire life, and they're two movies that - whether they make a lot of money or two people go to see them - they speak of me, then I consider them incredibly successful. I don't need to be Steven Spielberg.

You develop a third eye where you kind of know where they are in a room at all times but no matter how vigilant you are as a parent, at some point, you'll look around a room and can't find them and there's a searing pain that goes through your body.

Everybody reads for me. I was never weird about that. I never minded coming in and reading. They should know if I'm the right person, and I should know if I want to do a movie.

I'm interested in directing movies about situations that I've lived, so they are almost a personal essay about what I've come to believe in.

I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it. It allows you to really appreciate the hand of the filmmaker.

I had to take my makeup off at work every night. I wasn't allowed to do it at home because my mom said that when your work day is done, you're done with work.

Any actor working a long time should know how a shot is set up, where to place themselves, how to handle the lines. I'm a member of the crew, like the best boy, the electrician. What I'm good at is making eyes at the camera.

Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.

I prefer to commit 100 per cent to a movie and make fewer films, because it takes over your life.

There are conscious reasons and unconscious reasons why I pick something. You know, I have to be moved by the story and usually that means it has to touch me in some kind of personal place.

I like to nap. I do like to sleep. Sometimes I sleep in between takes.