Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.
I'm a really huge fan of the old romantic comedies from the '30s and '40s... Huge fan. I love all that stuff.
I love 'Bringing Up Baby.' Anything that Katharine Hepburn's in. I'm committed to the Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn era of filmmaking.
There are many actors who have inspired me: Spencer Tracy for his incredible elegance and, of course, Cary Grant. But, there's also an Italian actor I admire a great deal: Alberto Sordi.
I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.
Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the Bogart days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.
I wanted to be Gene Kelly. Well really, I just wanted to dance with Cyd Charisse.
Gene Hackman is one of the great American actors of all time.
African Queen' is pretty darn great.
I'm very influenced by documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking, by a lot of noir and films from the '40s. Those are my favorite. And then, filmmaking from the '70s is a big influence for me.
When I was a kid going to the movies, we'd go because Bogart was in the movie, or Cagney, or John Wayne. We didn't know what the story was about or anything.
I long for the old days of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, stars who had real glamour and mystique. We only knew so much about their lives; the rest was a mystery.
I suppose they call me a woman's director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.
You know, they just don't make big movie stars the way they used to, maybe because the system has changed, the studio system, but it's sad to see people like Jimmy Stewart go, all the giants of the past.
I'd been a fan of old film comedies like Preston Sturges and Howard Hawks movies - the fast-paced dialogue in movies like 'His Girl Friday' and 'Bringing Up Baby' and 'Twentieth Century' and 'Sullivan's Travels.'
I always loved when James Stewart did roles that were not so dialogue-based, like 'Vertigo.'
As cliche as it is, I was a huge Audrey Hepburn girl growing up.
'The Nice Guys' fulfilled my 1970s fantasy.
The first time I saw Douglas Sirk was in college. I didn't encounter him on the late, late, late show like a lot of people; people a little older than me, maybe. But I saw him already as someone to take special note of in an academic context in college. I was immediately in a state of visual splendor.
When I was a kid I really loved Humphrey Bogart. But when I was in theater school, Robert DeNiro was my go-to guy.
I always wanted to work with Spencer Tracy, which never happened, although I knew him well. And I never worked with Cary Grant.
In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him.
What I loved about the 1950s is that there is an aesthetic to even the average film. The way the camera is placed, the way characters move, the way you dressed the sets, the respect for craft and actors, I do miss that in today's films.
When wearing a trench coat, you're allowed to act like Humphrey Bogart when he was detective Sam Spade.
Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing - no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn't happen that much anymore.
