Todd Solondz Quotes

Casting is everything. If you get the right people they make you look good.

When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It’s in real life that people are over the top.

Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they’re watching isn’t the original.

One thing I want to say: I don’t like victim stories and I don’t write them.

But you’re right, I did think about acting more and then decided against it.

When I’m asked who my audience is, I say someone with an open mind, which is not a vacant one and sometimes a liberal mind is not the same thing as an open one.

Some directors hardly talk to the actors at all.

And that’s just what I’m saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.

Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that – and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut.

Like everything, what compels one to put pen to paper is a great question.

The funny thing is, strangers still seem to feel comfortable coming up to me and saying things, but now usually it’s because they recognize me, and they say nice things.

But anonymity is very important to me, and I don’t want to be recognized in public more than I already am.

I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I’d like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I’m too drawn by my own material.

All I mean is, I’m not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it’s not very loud. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the movie.

I don’t like telling people where I stand on this, although I’m surprised anybody wonders. I suppose if I say I’m pro-choice, if I make that clear, it let’s the audience off the hook, then they can sort of relax. Okay, it’s alright he’s pro-choice then I can enjoy this.

It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby.

When part of what you’re trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.