The casting director on the movie made me aware of her. She told me what to watch Starter For Ten, which I did and thought she was great in. She was just so charming and beautiful. But I felt she could probably look plain if we tried. And when I subsequently met with her, I was so charmed by her vulnerability and sweetness. Those were two qualities that were the most important for that character.

I thought I could make a sarcastic joke about it. But it's based on my own struggle with how much to give, how much it's really helping or not, and how foolish or not I feel. Giving sometimes backfires.

People say to me all the time that I threw some money into some guy's coffee cup [by accident, thinking they were poor]. People do make the same sort of mistake. I've made attempts to volunteer that have been calamitous!

I don't know where my next movie is going to get financed or if it will. I think every filmmaker is probably worried about that, unless their movie made a fortune. My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune. So yeah, it's scary.

Well, I tried being in front of the camera as a student and that was terrifying. But the press stuff about me growing up on his [film] sets has been exaggerated. I was an extra as a kid and I was also a PA [production assistant] on one of his movies, so I was lucky to get production experience. But I was nowhere near him.

I always had good friends, but I did not feel like a cool girl, ever.

I do think things like old furniture and art are arbitrarily assigned. And I say that coming from an uneducated place in terms of, you know... art... curating. But who's to say what's valuable and what's not? I guess I feel like in the end it's all pretty meaningless 'cause we're all going to die.