I’m always fetishizing the French woman and French taste and style. My assistant will make fun of me because every time we’re picking the direction of a collection, I say the same thing: ‘I want it to be really French.’
I was a ball boy for the Atlanta Falcons; I was a tax assessor – this was all in high school – I was an account assistant at the courthouse, and then I was a real estate assistant.
Then I usually leave the choice of the second assistant director and any other assistant directors to the first assistant director, who will choose because he or she is responsible for the conduct and the efficiency of the second assistant directors.
Before MS moved in on me, I’d worked for seven years as a city lawyer, as the editor of a literary magazine, and before the age of 20, I’d also worked as a cadet journalist and as an assistant director in both film and TV. And then, after the lesions of MS, both on my spine and in my brain, I was the opposite of bionic.
Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.
Sure, I came up under Mike White, and Miguel Arteta; I was Mike White’s assistant on ‘Dawson’s Creek.’
My dad came over from Ireland when he was 13 and lived on the streets, working on building sites, and has just retired from his job delivering furniture for John Lewis. My mum has had the same job for 30 years as a sales assistant at Marks and Spencer. They’ve always been really great; they just want me to be happy.
I didn’t come out and roll from job to job – my first year was really tough. I had to work as a teaching assistant for an agency; I ran a pancake stall in Dulwich Market. I taught drama classes and ran my own workshops. I applied for every advert on Gumtree there possibly was.
My interactions with Sorkin were agonisingly weird. He is by far the weirdest person I have ever met. I had dinner with him and a few hours before I got an e-mail from his assistant saying, ‘Sean, this does not need to be a long conversation. Aaron is only going to use it to win your trust.’
I believe in, ‘I do it my way, and you do it your way, and then see what works’ pattern. I think that comes with me having worked as an assistant director earlier, which I really enjoyed.
To me, there is something superbly symbolic in the fact that an astronaut, sent up as assistant to a series of computers, found that he worked more accurately and more intelligently than they. Inside the capsule, man is still in charge.
The feeling is that video assistant referees and technology are here to help us, especially for justice in the penalty area.
I don’t have an assistant. I make a lot of people around me my slaves, but no assistant.
