Quotes from Debra Granik

Our necks are getting injured from looking down, and the movie screen gives you opportunity to look up, you know? It gives you an opportunity to possibly have a discussion with someone afterwards.

My ego is one thing. Of course I want people to like what I do. Of course. There's no doubt. You wouldn't do it. But I think what people don't fully know is how responsible you feel for so many entities. So many hardworking people who've collaborated.

You can't make movies without known names, and unknowns can't become known, because they can't get work.

My first narrative films developed out of a documentary process - finding someone who was willing to be filmed, watching, listening, taking copious notes and many hours of video footage.

Stereotypes are convenient. And yet within them, everyone will say there's something that - you know, they don't come for no reason. It's just that it takes time to explore complexity.

Sometimes you get ensnared by an idea, and it's what I call 'the sticky burr': You go hiking, and a burr sticks to you, and that's the film you're going to make.

For whole swaths of people, that map of, 'Come along this way, come to college, do this and that,' isn't offered.

I'm doing my best to stay off that financing scheme that relies on this one strip of capital, which is the red carpet. And - no sob story - but it's hard. It takes a while.

What does it really mean to have something change in you very late in your life, after you've structured your life in a different way? What does it mean to be someone who has had a history of sometimes reckless living, and then to really want to change yourself?

I don't want to make fictional characters who are perfect - that's a vanilla situation - but the fact is you are allowed to more carefully select and curate what it is you're going to explore.

American film isn't just film and glamor and fame and the lives of people who are fortunate financially. Those aren't the only stories in this vast nation. That's my mandate.

There are so many American experiences that we can't know about unless we venture out to create a dialogue, to observe, ask questions, and stay there for a while.

I will always face the conundrum that the subjects I'm attracted to aren't essentially commercial.

I come from what they call the land of nowhere. I'm from the suburb. It's extremely atomizing.

We need cultural awareness and a cooperative approach with other countries versus a dominating approach.

There are documentaries that will just save your life and be the conduit to the art form you started out loving.

Emerging actors know there's a whole lot to learn each time they are spending with someone who's done a lot.

Festivals are where I see other peoples' films, where we talk, where I get to learn what was working about the film, I get to have a discussion with viewers... and people who enjoy reading films - I enjoy reading other peoples' films, and what discussions can come of that.

The social-media discourse is very different from what it might be on the ground. It's easy to bloviate without having to look anyone in the eye and then having those sentiments swell and amplify and go viral.