Even when you're casting, casting is always one of the weirdest subjective areas. You can get a group of people who would decide and say, "This person is a great actor and this person is less than a great actor," but there will always be somebody else who likes that person better than you based on their experience in their other films.
Suzanne ToddJust watching Chris Nolan direct was amazing. He is one of the most lovely people, which as you know doesn't always go hand-in-hand with great directors. But with Christopher Nolan, and there's only a few I think like him in Hollywood, that's absolutely true.
Suzanne ToddI remember somebody had said to me "What're you doing with a movie like Boiler Room? It's all men and you're a woman. You should be making romantic comedies," or something like that. Boiler Room, for me, was a morality tale. I remember this interview where they said to me "Yeah, but all the characters are men," and I was like, "But I'm a girl, I like men!" It's not like there's nothing interesting to me just because a lot of characters in that movie happen to be male. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I only wanna make Must Love Dogs over and over again.
Suzanne ToddEven when you're casting, casting is always one of the weirdest subjective areas. You can get a group of people who would decide and say, "This person is a great actor and this person is less than a great actor," but there will always be somebody else who likes that person better than you based on their experience in their other films.
Suzanne ToddYou want to put people together who will work well, and each movie kind of has its own personality in terms of how people are working or the temperature on set, and we want people who will fit in with that mix. It's one of the really important parts of it.
Suzanne ToddI don't think actually that kind of ego check or "I could do better" mentality probably serves better in Hollywood, because it's definitely not a meritocracy. You can look at any number of careers and sort of see that they don't really make sense if it was only based on your movies working either creatively or financially. There are people that move ahead without that, and there are people that don't move ahead even if they did have that.
Suzanne Todd