Catherine Keener really gets me. She and I have such a shorthand together. Nicole Holofcener More Quotes by Nicole Holofcener More Quotes From Nicole Holofcener What's the trick to writing a great female character? Make her human. Nicole Holofcener female writing character Filming is a funny combination of having a good time and not being able to wait until its over. Nicole Holofcener good-times able waiting I wrote lots of scripts that never got made and they were terrible. I thought they were good at the time. You can't write two scripts and expect your career to take off. Keep writing. Be you. Be original. A lot of people go for a genre, which is fine if you can do that really well, but we all have such layered histories. We all come from a unique background. Write about your past, write about you. Or make stuff up, but make it about something that really matters. Nicole Holofcener unique writing past I definitely feel like a native New Yorker. My personality was formed there. Nicole Holofcener new-yorkers personality feels Hollywood always likes to create a star. Nicole Holofcener hollywood likes stars I always had good friends, but I did not feel like a cool girl, ever. Nicole Holofcener cool-girl good-friend girl I hear a lot of, "We want to make a movie with you." Then "No, we don't want to make this one. We want to make that other movie with you." I don't really get that and it's very frustrating. It angers me. Because my movies are my movies. Nicole Holofcener frustrating I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. Enough Said had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality. Nicole Holofcener fun fall thinking I don't know where my next movie is going to get financed or if it will. I think every filmmaker is probably worried about that, unless their movie made a fortune. My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune. So yeah, it's scary. Nicole Holofcener worried scary thinking The pieces of "Please Give" just did fit together. I'm very comfortable with the ensemble. I thought this was just going to be a movie about this girl who gives mammograms. She's the lead. And then before I know it, she's got a sister, neighbors, and sometimes parents and friends and then it's an ensemble. And that's what I'm comfortable with, I guess. Nicole Holofcener girl parent giving I know I repeat myself in all my movies, but I just let it go, let it happen. Clearly, I'm not finished with that issue. But they seem to me like completely different movies. They're definitely coming from me. Nicole Holofcener let-it-go different What are we taking from people and what do we give is a life-long struggle, I think, for most of us. Who are we? Do we like who we are? Do we know who we are? Do we care? Does anyone care? That's such a big topic. I could tackle that in many movies. So could other people. Nicole Holofcener struggle people thinking The movie is in my head and that's the movie. But I'd be crazy to not be flexible. I think because I have the movie in my head, I can be flexible. I know what's going to work and not work and I know, generally, what I can change and bend and have the movie still work. Nicole Holofcener being-crazy crazy thinking I do think things like old furniture and art are arbitrarily assigned. And I say that coming from an uneducated place in terms of, you know... art... curating. But who's to say what's valuable and what's not? I guess I feel like in the end it's all pretty meaningless 'cause we're all going to die. Nicole Holofcener term art thinking You can't take your stuff with you when you die. That doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it while you're alive. Why not? But it's all pretty silly. I fall victim to it. I mean, I want nice stuff too. So I guess I'm poking fun at myself as well as other materialistic people. Nicole Holofcener nice silly fun My idea of no makeup on actors is really no makeup. I mean, they can be wearing makeup. I don't care what they're wearing as long as it looks like they're not wearing makeup. But an actress will suddenly appear with some lipstick on. And that's makeup. Keener's character wears makeup. Her character would wear makeup. I try to stay true to whoever that person is. I hate that kind of thing where you're waking up in the morning with makeup on in a movie. I just think it pulls you out of the movie. Nicole Holofcener hate morning character I want the look of a movie to be secondary. I really want people to be engaged in the story and the characters and not think about a style or think about me or think about the director of photography and what a great job he's doing. I never feel like that should be there. Nicole Holofcener photography character thinking It seemed like there were so many options in filmmaking before. If they don't want to make it, well okay, there's a hundred other places we can try. I'm not a producer and I don't even know the places my producer goes to, thankfully. But I think there are far fewer options now to releasing a movie theatrically or to getting the financing. Nicole Holofcener filmmaking trying thinking I would still encourage somebody, if they wanted to make a movie, to just go take a movie camera. That's clearly been shown to work. It's just how do you get it seen? Nicole Holofcener The stories that I want to tell are completely, well somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems. Nicole Holofcener issues self stories
