Somebody pointed out to me that there's no horror film on my resume, which is true, but I also don't really go see those movies. Although when I was thinking about it, I was thinking "I would probably have a really nice beach house if I made a horror movie." They seem to be very popular. I just don't think it's my thing.
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 ToddI think Memento movie was hard because people didn't get it, they just didn't understand it. Not from the stage when we read the script and liked it. It's sort of a famous story now how we finished the movie and showed it to distributors and nobody wanted it. So it wasn't just they didn't get the script, they really didn't even understand the movie when it was done. But I think that was a particularly hard one. I don't think it was harder because we were girls, but I do think obviously there are particular challenges to working in a male-dominated industry.
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 ToddSomebody asked me, "When was the last time it was harder for you as a woman"? And I was like, "What time is it? Do you mean today?" I hate to say that, because it sounds so depressing, but it absolutely happens in many many ways all the time, large and small ways. But it's not like it creates new pain for me on a daily basis, it's just a pain that I accepted long ago. It's definitely harder.
Suzanne ToddThe problem for me is that I just don't often come across material that speaks to me and my TV education. Before we all had DirectTV and Netflix and Amazon, there's literally 15 years where I saw nothing. Now, I get the pleasure of binge-watching, so now I feel like I'm much more in a TV state of mind, because I binge-watched so many incredible TV shows that now I'm actually a little bit more excited about working in the space.
Suzanne Todd