I’m first and foremost a company man, surprising as that is. I love Warner Brothers. That’s where I have a deal. That’s where I’ve been for years. So I don’t really interact too much with other studios and do things with other studios and I don’t necessarily read scripts from other studios.
Indian films have this obsession with hygienic clean spaces, even though the country’s not so clean. They’re either shot in the studios or shot in London, in America, in Switzerland – clean places. Everywhere except India.
There’s a lack of tremendous pressure in the Disney studios. It’s a pleasant place to be.
I’m not in a position where I can pick and choose. It’s the other way around. The studios pick and choose.
We have the word ‘Mc’ attached to so many things now, like ‘McMansions.’ It’s become part of our vernacular as something on steroids almost, just bigger and bigger. I think, to a degree, studios have fallen prey to that as well.
With ‘Soul’ I was just here in Aotearoa, New Zealand the whole time so I never got to go to the studios.
If Barbra Steisand wants to make a picture called ‘My Pink Fingernail,’ the studios will go, ‘Gee, Barbra, what a wonderful idea! Money is no object! Take two years in preproduction and write the music, and you’ll direct.’
The studios didn’t really take independent films seriously, till ‘Sweetback’ was such a financial success.
I have studios in the different places where I live – in Ibiza, Paris and London – but they’re not crazy studios, they’re just rooms with good monitors, and all I do is plug my laptop in. It’s a different way to make music, but for me, I love it, because it’s more connected to the world.
I hate the idea of people thinking that I’m just a little girl who goes into studios with pop producers, and they work their magic.
Studios never put pressure. They know the kind of films I want to make.
We don’t curse at Shots Studios, and we send a very positive message.
More and more what we’re licensing, we’re licensing on a global basis – even though the studios aren’t orchestrated to sell that way yet, my bet is that they will.
I used Malta as a location to shoot a lot of my action sequences, and that’s because we don’t have the kind of setup that Malta Film Studios does. They have a world-class facility.
It’s a debilitating process, working with the studios. With the length of time it takes for drafts and development deals, your enthusiasm is gone before you’re ready to make the film.
The studios gotta start making more stuff where black folks get quality stuff. But I can’t trip about that because I’ve been making movies for 35 years, and I’ve played everything from an old lady to a donkey, so I can’t be on here talking about, ‘They don’t give us enough roles’ and diversity.
When I have time off, my friends and I will go to Universal Studios, the movies, out to eat, and shopping. I’m happiest when I’m just hanging out with my friends… it really doesn’t matter what we do.
We have gotten some terrible reviews at times but if we depended on the judgment of the studios or critics, we never would have made more than one movie.
When I was working on the music of ‘Jaan-E-Mann’ and ‘Umrao Jaan,’ my father was hospitalised. I had to shuttle between hospital and studios.
I’ve always said that we must do local cinema but not lose sight of national appeal. That’s the way New Theatres, L V Prasad, Gemini Studios operated.
Well, my closest friends are still the ones that I went to school with, but it’s nice to go to work, at the studios, and have people there that you’re willing to talk to and have a good conversation with.
Hollywood in the 1930s is an incredible period of history. There are so many amazing stories about the stars and the studios at that time that you can’t fit into one film.
I would love to have been around in the Keystone Studios days.
Many music directors have studios at home.
It’s all false pressure; you put the heat on yourself, you get it from the networks and record companies and movie studios. You put more pressure on yourself to make everything that much harder.
The old studios that mass-produced dreams are gone with the wind, just like the old downtown theaters that were the temples of the dreams.
I was the first woman in WWE to ever be in a WWE Studios movie and was honored to be trusted with such an opportunity.
‘Black film,’ that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, ‘We’ve made our black film. We’ve made our film with people of color in it,’ as opposed to, ‘I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.’
The plan was criticized by some retired military officers embedded in TV studios. But with every advance by our coalition forces, the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent.
I mean, I’ve sold all these scripts and nothing’s been made. Studios have closed, stars have died. I had a director find Jesus. And the pictures just don’t get made.
To go back, the mistake that Universal Studios made with ‘Dawn of the Dead’ was that they didn’t have enough money or cared enough to make a soundtrack.
It’s hard to get movie studios to pay a lot of money for movies that don’t have robots or explosions.
When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios.
When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn’t be asking us to do it, I don’t think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.
In L.A., I live right across from Universal Studios.
Studios are like hospitals. A lot of people check in, and they don’t check out.
I first came to Abbey Road Studios in 1994. I scored ‘Little Women’ there. What I remember most about it was how hard it was to come to London from Los Angeles and conduct when you’re jetlagged.
I wouldn’t wish overnight success on anyone. You have no real friends. Everyone works endless hours at different studios, so far apart. Even on your own lot, relationships were formal and often competitive.
In my day, the only people who achieved real independence were my father, Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin, who, with D. W. Griffith, formed United Artists. Other than that, everybody belonged to the big studios. They had no say in their own careers.
In the U.S., it would be so much better if the studios made many more smaller films for niche markets rather than a few tent pole films that swamp cinemas and Hoover up all the funding.
Every now and then, people will recognize me at restaurants or Universal Studios or something. I’ll always take a picture with them if they want. I mean, that’s what telling stories and acting for a living are for – for the people.
I’m ruthlessly picky when it comes to the crafting of an album, the choosing of musicians, the right mikes, the right studios. There was a time when it was, ‘whatever you want.’ Then, as you learn a little bit more about your tastes, I don’t give in to that kind of thing.
One week I was in school and the next I’m at Leavesden Studios in Dumbledore’s office reading scenes with Daniel Radcliffe. Weird. And terrifying for such a huge ‘Harry Potter’ fan.
I loved the atmosphere of the dance studios – the wooden floors, the big mirrors, everyone dressed in pink or black tights, the musicians accompanying us – and the feeling of ritual the classes had.
I don’t think I’ll ever be a producer who’s into taking the meetings and fighting the big fights with studios. I really don’t like that part. I’m much more interested in the material.
Maybe studios don’t want to see women acting in a way that isn’t womanly. Maybe people don’t.
One of the wonderful things that I’ve always loved as an art student, what I always loved about comics, was that they are interpreted differently by different graphic artists all the time, so now film is doing that thanks to Marvel Studios.
I’ve really pushed the limits of what you can get away with at big studios, and I’ve been extremely well-supported.
I am currently talking to one of the studios about making American Star as a TV series.
There was a period around Columbine when horror films were being kind of assailed by the government. The studios got very afraid that they were going to be sued, and studios at about that time were all being taken over by corporations.
When I see a lot of the big Hollywood movies, I see they are all financed by Indian studios.
Most studios in Memphis had a house set of drums; the drummers just brought their own sticks.
We were like a stock company at Warners. We didn’t know any of the stars from the other studios.
I don’t think anybody at the major studios is rushing to offer me a romantic lead.
Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can’t.
I don’t want to only make the movies that studios will greenlight.
The film industry is driven by male narrative. Heads of studios are often men, teeming with male executives everywhere you look, and so the narratives we have the screenwriters usually for male leads. Women tend to be second string: the girlfriend of, the secretary who becomes.
To be quite honest, I’ve been very blessed when I’ve worked with Hollywood. The studios that have purchased my work to be adapted to film have really liked the work and wanted to stay as close as they could to what the book was.
