“If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter.”

If I were to write anything at all, it would turn out to be nothing but talk about movies. In other words, take ‘myself,’ subtract ‘movies,’ and the result is ‘zero.’

I suppose all of my films have a common theme. If I think about it, though, the only theme I can think of is really a question: Why can’t people be happier together?

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with.

When it is very well expressed, one experiences a particularly deep emotion while watching that film.

My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something.

I can’t afford to hate anyone. I don’t have that kind of time.

To be an artist means to search, to find and look at these realities. To be an artist means to never look away.

A truly good movie is enjoyable too. There’s nothing complicated about it.

To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.

It’s easy to explain the psychological state of a character at a particular moment, but it’s very difficult to describe it through the delicate nuances of action and dialogue. Yet it is not impossible.

While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else.

They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film.

That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.

For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water.

He is still my favourite author, and he is the one – I still think – who writes most honestly about human existence.

We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects.

With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film.

Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.

You have to be strong to be a carpenter, maybe, but the director of a film doesn’t need to have muscles.

When I started my first film, there were three women directors in France. Their films were OK, but I was different. It’s like when you start to jump and you put the pole very high – you have to jump very high. I thought, I have to use cinema as a language.

When I was creative director [at Estée Lauder], I was always being asked about my beauty must-haves. From there I had this fun idea to create a line of what was in my makeup bag. But I also love accessories, and people associate me with home, family, and beauty.

When I took the job as Estée Lauder’s creative director, the first thing I did was go into the archives! I love taking our heritage and making it modern.

As a girl, my favorite toy was my dollhouse; if I could still play with it now, I would! I used to love a well-arranged room: the furniture, the fabric, the lighting.