Quotes from Niki Caro

I was always stealing 40-gallon drums off the road at night, bringing them back to the workshop and cutting them up with a gas axe because I loved to weld. I would make creatures out of these old metal drums.

In all cases, I will always hire the best person for the job, and it just so happens that many of those are women.

I have a commitment to real worlds on screen. I like working in real communities. I like telling real stories.

Martial arts are inherently both incredibly impressive and incredibly beautiful. And that's my female nature, maybe, and my instinct, to make things beautiful.

We know, from our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our friends, that our strength comes - female strength - comes in all kinds of forms.

Personally, I have nothing to prove. But I'm tremendously curious about human nature. Female life is so incredibly underexplored in cinema, so these stories feel very exotic.

You know, when you make something in live-action, you make it real. And when you are inspired by and determined to honor the original - the most original version of the 'Mulan' story - then you have to acknowledge that this is a story about a young woman who disguises herself as a man and goes to war.

I never had a mentor. God, it would have been nice, but I just didn't. I look up to Jane Campion. And my most favorite director Lynne Ramsay.

I come from a place that is very politically sophisticated and progressive. New Zealand was the first place to give women the right to vote.

I don't see myself as a crusading feminist filmmaker. Not at all. I have the luxury of coming from New Zealand and I've had moments in my life where being female is considered to be a tremendous advantage - emotionally, career-wise.

When I was starting out I was way too scared to ask real directors how to do it or ask for advice, I'm really kind of New Zealand like that.

The New Zealand culture and nature is such that we find it very difficult to celebrate creative achievement. In order to get New Zealanders' respect you have to dominate the world like Peter Jackson has done. He is absolutely revered.

I blew up the mine in 'North Country'. It was about a kilometer long. I was so nervous that I'd do it wrong that I closed my eyes when I did it and I missed the shot completely.

You know when you work with animals you have to do so very carefully, species by species.

I take particular care in authenticity and specificity when working in cultures not my own. Every aspect of the filmmaking here was meticulously researched, and not just by me but across every department.

The amazing thing about cross-country is that they don't run indoors - I could put them in extraordinary environments. And it's kind of uniquely cinematic in that way, to be able to commit to the screen some things that people don't get to see too often.

I'm not at my house storyboarding, and telling them they need to move from A to B, 'Move here and then there.' Never, ever! I used to storyboard when I was much less experienced.

I think about things like the ability to communicate a vision, strength to create an environment where the actors fell very safe and where they can maybe they can work without e protecting themselves they can really stretch. These qualities are neither male nor female.

I only work every five years. It's exhausting. I've got a family, and I want to be a really good parent, as well as a hopefully good filmmaker.

The problem for me, with most movies for children, is that the filmmakers make the mistake of making it too simplistic. Where a child's world can be very complex, emotionally.

If you look at my body of work, which is not very big, really, it took an evolutionary leap with 'The Zookeeper's Wife'.