-
For me, my films are not like my children. They are like my ex-wife. They gave me so much; I gave them so much; I loved them so much; we part ways, and it's OK, we part ways.
-
I was 8 when we landed on the moon. I was so into the space program as a kid. Eventually, I realized it was very unlikely that a Mexican kid in the early '70s was going to be an astronaut.
-
When you work with kids, people tell you to be very delicate, but that's the last thing you should do with kids. They feel patronized if you're like that. They just want you to be normal.
-
It's a cliche, but Americans are puritanical. In their movies, they are scared of sex, but they overindulge in violence. I could have cut a G-rated version of 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' that would have pleased the American ratings board, but it would have been five minutes long.
-
If I would rescue one of my movies, it would be 'A Little Princess.'
-
There are fewer established rules in the way you tell a story for commercials than in features. It's a great little short story you get to play with.
-
I have my misgivings about 3-D. I don't like the lack of blacks and whites, how it dulls the image, how the color gets corrupted. I don't necessarily like the experience of having heavy glasses in front of me.
-
I learned there's an amazing unexplored territory in terms of narrative. Before, I thought the unexplored territory was the form, the way you shoot a movie. Now, I'm learning about the beautiful marriage between form and narrative.
-
I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.
-
The amazing thing is that the more money it takes for a movie to get made, the more you feel like everybody wants you to fail.
-
Experiencing this film in 2-D is only getting about 20 percent of the experience of 'Gravity.'
-
I left Mexico for artistic survival. If I had stayed, I would have been forced by the government, who control the movie business, to direct TV shows or commercials or infomercials for the government.
-
It's seldom that you find great moments in television. Usually you remember - in 'Breaking Bad' or any of these other great shows - you remember situations or characters. Not moments. But I have to say, I can make the same argument for mainstream movies, which have bad narratives and also no memorable moments.
-
This is the thing I have with awards: If awards would make your movie more pretty, I would really get super excited about it. But your movie's done. You get awards, you don't get awards... They don't make your movie more ugly or pretty.
-
I have to confess that I don't read much of what is written about me.
-
I have this thing that, once I finish a movie, I never see it again.
-
I have to say, 'Gravity' is better in 3-D, even though in 2-D the quality of the picture is better. But the 3-D is better.
-
'Y Tu Mama Tambien' is one of the first unrated movies to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But many video stores won't take a movie that's not rated, so I had to make the movie an R.
-
I was not aware of how much I loved 'Canoa' until I saw it after doing 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' and realized that my voice - over about the story's historical context - that narrator - came from 'Canoa'.
-
I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you're alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable.
-
Cautionary tales were fantastic in the '70s.
-
If you want to keep on being relevant as a director, I think you have to embrace the times. And with the times come technologies and formats.
-
I guess I have a short attention span! I'm interested in new worlds, new universes, new challenges.
-
In 'Gravity,' nearly everything is a metaphor for the main character. The way I tend to approach a film is that character and background are equally important; one informs the other. Here, Sandra Bullock is caught between Earth and the void of the universe, just floating there in between. We use the debris as a metaphor for adversity.