Marielle Heller

I do think there's probably a little more opportunity to direct in television, because there are just so many TV shows. In movies, it still feels harder to break in. I do hope that's shifting. The difference between TV and miniseries and movies is also diminishing.

The more women directors that get hired, the more practices will shift, top down.

I'm getting more and more used to the fact that being a director and being a woman are two things that everyone wants to talk about, because it's so rare.

For the same reason I want to make movies about women, I also want to make movies that help men be better men and that can be an antidote to toxic masculinity.

I so related to John Hughes movies.

I think there used to be more respect toward young people in movies. John Hughes really respects his characters and they're given their emotional weight. He does so even with kids, but especially with teenagers.

I don't look like the way we've painted directors in our movies and everything since forever. I don't look like an old white guy in a baseball cap. So, yes, there are always moments when people are surprised that I'm the director.

But the idea behind French hours is that instead of doing a 12 and a half or 13-hour day with a lunch break in the middle, you do a 10-hour straight day. Everyone kind of eats food throughout the day anyway on the set.

I had a great family. Nobody ever told me that I should stop raising my hand in class or that I should become - as a girl, that I should somehow become less confident.

I spent most of my 20s working as an actor. I started writing and directing because I was frustrated with the types of roles that were available to young women.

I have a hard time with films that I feel like I can predict every twist or turn they take from the moment I start reading the script.

And he doesn't really - it's never awkward when you're talking to Tom Hanks. I've never seen him have an awkward conversation with anybody.

I was so involved in my own life I wasn't even aware of what was happening in the outside world, but as I got older I was constantly reflecting back on my own teenagehood and feeling like I hadn't been represented.

I do think there's a weird stigma where people probably think that female directors are a risk.

Our culture of the Bay Area is a place where you want to be different. You want to be seen. You want to be heard.

I haven't acted in 10 years. I always talk about being an actor, and yet I've been focusing on making movies for a long time.

I feel some responsibility, being one of the few women directors who are being given opportunities. Sometimes, that makes me want to take on some big franchise because I want to show people that women can do it.

One of the boring tricks about capturing Broadway onscreen, actually, is just about all the different unions.

I was really serious about being an actress. I was playing young female characters and not feeling very connected to them.

I don't really believe that all theater needs to be filmed - for some things, the special part of live theater is that it exists and then it's gone.