What’s the point of being an Australian guy traveling through India if you are going to go to India to meet other Australians?
I believe that human beings are born first and given passports later. I’m really thankful for my journey. And it’s a journey I didn’t design.
The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or a bad movie, it’s just to see what you learn for the next one.
Most of cinema nowadays is about shooting a lot and then figuring it out in the cutting room, rather than seeing your film it the head and see what’s in your head and not shoot what you have already envisioned in your head.
When people see some depth you never intended that’s really cool, you just put on a face and say “Oh, yeah, that was deep”. What are you going to say? I’m just a moron with luck?
When you work with kids, people tell you to be very delicate, but that’s the last thing you should do with kids. They feel patronized if you’re like that. They just want you to be normal.
[on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)] I honestly don’t know if they are things that Bryan would want out there, so I’ll keep them quiet. But things about her family-she’s kind of a tragic figure in a way. She’s been through a lot, and that’s why she’s so guarded and mysterious.
[on breaking into the indie film world with Smashed (2007)] It’s something I’ve been trying to do for years and years . . . It’s almost like my first movie in a weird way, ’cause it’s my first movie in this world, which is a world I’ve been trying to break into. [I’ve wanted] to be around filmmakers that are trying new things and not part of the system, so to speak, and they’re doing things on their own terms.
[on Death Proof (2007), in which she was a cheerleader] I haven’t, no. I was never a cheerleader. It was funny, because we were asked to wear cheerleading outfits to the audition, and most of the other girls had them because they were cheerleaders at one point and had them hanging in the closet, somewhere. So I went and found this kind of retro-looking, pseudo-cheerleader outfit and it was pretty cool.
[on Death Proof (2007)] Immediately when I heard Quentin Tarantino was having a project, I just wanted to be a part of it in any way I possibly could, even before I read the script. So when I got the script, I was just so excited because there were eight strong female roles, and it’s so rare for me to read a script like that. I’m usually going through the entire thing trying to find what part I’m supposed to be playing because it’s so male oriented and driven.
Hollywood really still is a boys’ club, unfortunately. Everything is from a male perspective. When Bridesmaids (2011) came out it was like this huge revolution, the fact that here was a comedy about women and written by women. It’s sad that it had to be such a big deal. Even though there are amazing female directors and executives it is still really off-balance.
It seems like when women are kicking ass it’s because we have some superpower. What’s so great about Ripley, from Alien (1979), is that she’s just a kick-ass woman. For younger women like myself growing up in the 1980s, to see something like that was really empowering so I really want to find roles like that for that same reason, so that other girls will be able to say, “Wow, she is a totally relatable woman who’s able to be strong and kick butt.”
Matt Smith is an incredible actor and it is going to be so much fun to act alongside him. I just can’t wait to get started.
[on winning the role as Amy Pond on Doctor Who (2005)] I am absolutely over the moon at being chosen to play the Doctor’s new companion. The show is such a massive phenomenon that I can’t quite believe I am going to be a part of it.
I got a recall to come in and read with Matt [the eleventh Doctor] and that was quite funny, actually, because, I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that I was auditioning, what I was auditioning for, not even the people in the reception of the place that I was going to. So I had to give them a code name of ‘Panic Moon’. It was fun but it was actually an anagram for ‘companion’ which is quite clever.
I am legitimately Scottish. I can officially say – yes. Yeah, I am from Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland.
To be honest, I wasn’t really a huge follower of Doctor Who (1963) before I got this part. I mean I knew it was huge, but … I was nothing like my mum, who’s a proper diehard Whovian. She’s got a Tardis money-bag, and Dalek bubble-bath. But having read the first episode I was utterly smitten, and with the character. Amy’s a sassy lady, funny and passionate, and her relationship with the doctor has a really interesting dynamic.
[on the Doctor] He’s just really unlikely as a hero – which makes him so brilliant, I think, because he’s like this mad professor.
I wasn’t horrifically bullied. There was some name-calling but nothing awful. All kids get teased about something. And this was quite an obvious feature. When you’re really tall and ginger and white at school, you’re going to get it.
[on Oculus (2013)] I love horror films so much. I like being scared. I want to be in good films, obviously, rather than cheesy ones. And some horror films can be quite cheesy. I love watching them but I don’t necessarily want to be in them.
[asked about some directors she would like to work with] I want to work with Michael Haneke, the Austrian director, more than anything in the world. Can you make that happen for me? I love his films so much. He’s my favourite director in the world.
[on Michael Haneke‘s movies] I like his films because I like big films as well but they’re far more manipulative, like we’re going to make you feel sad at this point, then the music kicks in and you know what you’re supposed to feel, and they’re telling you what to feel, but Haneke’s stuff is just this really unbiased view of events, and you choose how to feel about it, which is fun for me.
[on playing Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)] I was a little worried that I was going to look like an overgrown fetus. Maybe that’s true. But it’s liberating. It’s very liberating. Everyone here should shave their heads.
I would definitely like to continue playing Aquaman. Playing a superhero is a lot of fun. Creating these stories is a lot of fun. I do what I love. And what I love is entertaining people.
I didn’t really grow up a comic book fanatic. I was a big baseball player, and my passion in life, in third grade, was collecting baseball cards. That was my childhood thing.
I was a big baseball player, and my passion in life, in third grade, was collecting baseball cards. That was my childhood thing.
[on the role of The Daily Show (1996)] When we spot silliness, we say so out loud. We’re not really Democrat or Republican. We’re out to stop that political trend of repeating things again and again until people are forced to believe them.
[in March 2003] I see myself as a driving force for global peace. Since we [The Daily Show (1996)] have been on CNNI [CNN International], the border between India and Pakistan has been stood down from red alert. Coincidence? We’re bringing healing to the international community.
[March 2003, on his role in The Daily Show (1996)] Liberal and conservative have lost their meaning in America. I represent the distracted center.
[February 2003, about his position at The Daily Show (1996)] I mostly work on writing the show. We have a talented crew of writers and I’m like the managing editor. I am the fake Lou Grant of the fake news world.
[on the attitude of The Daily Show (1996), referring to a role played by Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live (1975), September 30, 2002] We have always embraced stupidity. We have always worshipped at the altar of a man bent over with his butt crack exposed, fixing a refrigerator.
[about The Daily Show (1996)] That’s the beauty of our show. Comedy or politics. We’re sort of a mix. A space-age polymer of both. A synthetic comedy-like material.
[in Nov. 2002] I was born in New York City, but I was raised in New Jersey, part of the great Jewish emigration of 1963.
[on being picked to host the 78th Annual Academy Awards] As a performer, I’m truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can’t help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal.
An artistically-gifted pizza delivery boy, caught up in a criminal enterprise that funds his creative pursuits, confronts otherworldly and possibly dangerous forces when a mysterious girl sprung from his dreams appears at his next drop. Get to know the writer: The story centers around Jesse, a gifted artist, who delivers both pizzas and cash for the illicit gambling ring his boss Angelo runs. Shady turns spooky when a girl from Jesse’s drawings manifests in the flesh at one of his cash drops. Only the girl, mysterious and beautiful Taria, is very much real and powerfully psychic. Cryptically, she warns that working for Angelo, the father Jesse’s never had, will have dire consequences. That his true life path is to embrace his calling as an artist. If only Jesse believed Taria really can see the future. Soon after Taria disappears, broken-hearted Jesse is haunted by a series of strange, even supernatural, encounters, forcing him to make harrowing choices if he ever wants his girl back. If he even wants to live. Only after Angelo is beaten inches from death, and the ring’s big boss is murdered, does Jesse take a life-altering mindf*ck of a journey to the nearly unfathomable truth.
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11 BLOCKS TO GO: THE BET, 10min., USA Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad Samantha, a free-spirited hapless romantic, discovers her 30-something-year-old BFF Drew, a gay high-functioning drug-addled sex addict, hosting an orgy in lieu of honoring his personal commitments.
THE COWGIRL, 6min., USA Directed by Armando Hernandez A cowboy about to order his very last drink at closing time meets his unexpected match: a cowgirl waitress who gives him the check (and a whole lot more).
LEARNING TO FLY, 3min,. USA Directed by Samuel Alexander Slowik Learning to fly is a stop motion film by Sam Slowik featuring the adventure of Lego man and his rig friend, as they set out to learn how to fly.
CHRISTMAS AT DOUG’S, 12min., Canada Directed by Dean Harder Doug hosts a Christmas party every year. These parties are usually lacklustre at best with regifting being the norm. Mike and Chelsea have reservations about attending again but follow their Holiday good deed to give Doug some Christmas spirit in his life. Once they arrive it’s clear that this will not be a normal Christmas party. It’s Christmas overload. All the guests receive amazing gifts which leads to a new set of tension and curiosity. Where did Doug get the means to pull off such an amazing Christmas Party?
It’s Surprisingly Hard to Kill a Man!, 6min., USA Directed by Dana M St. Amand Made in the style of 1950s US propaganda, It’s Surprisingly Hard to Kill a Man begins by discussing the physicality of killing, then moves on to a darker tone.
I always want to make films. I think of it as a great opportunity to comment on the world in which we live. Perhaps just because I just came off The Hurt Locker (2008) and I’m thinking of the war and I think it’s a deplorable situation. It’s a great medium in which to speak about that. This is a war that cannot be won, why are we sending troops over there? Well, the only medium I have, the only opportunity I have, is to use film. There will always be issues I care about.
You cast not for marquee value but for performance and talent. The right actor for the part. Anything else is a compromise.
[on The Hurt Locker (2008)] War’s dirty little secret is that some men love it. I’m trying to unpack why, to look at what it means to be a hero in the context of 21st-century combat.
Usually what happens is there will be an urgency, and then I can do nothing else but that. [But] events like this [the killing of Osama bin Laden] only come along once or twice in a millennium.
[on Zero Dark Thirty (2012)] I feel we got it right. I’m proud of the movie, and I stand behind it completely. I think that it’s a deeply moral movie that questions the use of force. It questions what was done in the name of finding [Osama bin Laden].
Once you’ve opened the window on topical material, its very hard to close it. Holding up a contemporary mirror is more attractive to me now than ever.
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